While I should be writing

The moment I stepped into the doors of Toppings & Co in Bath, I realized I had as much chance of buying just one book as … well, of running a marathon.

The walls are lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves, and the bookshelves are stacked with books. A person could spend days there and still find new treasures. Or years:

@katarinabivald Imagine what it's like working here, it's difficult not to spend all our pay on books!

— Topping & Company (@ToppingsBath) March 2, 2015

And I hadn’t even seen their Arts room then.

Their recommendation: A Double Sorrow.

Bonus buys:

I had been looking forward to practicing my post Brittish accent all week. Everyone I met in the north had very much fun over the way I pronounced Baaaaath, so many conversations went something like this:
“So where are you going next?”
“First up is Manchester, and then I’m going to Bath.”
“Baaaaaath.”

This, I felt, would be a good place to finally be able to use my “how do you do.” And then I missed my chance. The very nice and charmingly elegant woman running the small hotel I stayed at would definitely have responded in kind, if I hadn’t been som distracted as to just say: “Nice to meet you.”

Oh well. Next time perhaps.

My first meeting with the nice hotel woman didn’t go entirely smoothly.
“Are you in town for the marathon, then?” she said and barely recognized my look of horror.
“I certainl am not”, I replied with great dignity. “I’m in town for Toppings and Mr B:s Emporium of Reading Delights. And Jane Austen, of course.”

On one way, the story of Simply Books reads like the ultimate guide to how not to open a bookshop, which is probably why they are so successful. If we thought too much about what following our dreams really entails, none of us would ever quit or day job.

But quit their day job they did; first Andrew, and then Sue.

“I’d always had this ridiculous pipedream about running a bookshop (with a cafe!) ever since visiting Barnes & Noble in Boston in about 1978”, says Andrew on the bookshop’s website. “I got somewhat diverted by a career in the education service in Manchester (for 20 odd years).”

The bookshop in Bramhall came up for sale, and the crazy dream of running a bookshop suddenly started to seem almost … possible. They made the decision, did the numbers, talked to the current owner, negotiated, and then … the owner sold it to someone else.

“Out of the blue, the owner calls and tells us that it’s been sold to someone else. It was quite a miserable weekend”, Andrew says. Mentally, they’d already made the decision to start a bookshop. So why not … do it anyway? From scratch. With another bookshop in town already. “We believed in the bookshop we wanted to create. So we did it.”

The plan at first was for Sue to keep her job within the education sector and not be involved in the day-to-day running of the shop. But as she explains on the website: “Over the summer before we opened I got hooked! Designing the shop with a blank piece of paper was brilliant, managing the builders not so much fun but good practice for keeping Andrew in line!”

And what a shop it is. Not only is the bookshop itself charming; full of little personal touches and details. But the things they do with local schools are impressive, including local awards, decided by school kids, bookgroups and author events.

They also have a large space reserved for the books that the staff themselves love, so when I asked Andrew for a recommendation it wasn’t that difficult.

“Let’s just go to my shelf over here. This might actually be the best book I’ve ever read. I recommend it to everyone; we’ve sold almost one a week for years.”

Which is, I think, a good testiment to the power of the booksellers’ recommendations.

Urmston is a small town just outside Manchester, with a sprawling city centre that was almost wiped out by the grand ambitions of politicians. Why be satisfied with streets lined with shops, when you can build some big mall instead? Like so many of these projects it was finished by the time the recession arrived.

Urmston Bookshop is run by Frances and Peter Hopkins: “We’d like to think that opening an independent bookshop also showed that we believed in this town.” And other independent businesses seem to agree.

Flixton Road, where the bookshop is located, now boasts an utterly charming vintage shop, a specialist dancewear shop, a clothing boutique, a sweet shop, a tattoo parlour and “many other quaint, quirky or useful little businesses that keep Urmston interesting”, according to a website that promotes independent business in Urmston. That website also listed five reasons Why We Need Independent Bookhops (and why we should shop at independent bookshops at World Book Day, and I completely agree with all of them.

Their recommendation for me: Longbourn, since I was heading towards Bath and Jane Austen-territory.

Their promise: “If you come back, you’ll get a cake based in the jacket of your book.” How can anyone possibly resist?