Some seven days into my epic, 44 UK bookshops-trip, I think I have finally got the hang of Brittish weather conversations. The secret is to open with a smile, a nod and a simple “good evening”/”good morning”/tentative “hello” and then wait for them to initiate it. I failed to grasp this important point in London. If you open the conversation yourself, with a remark about the rain or the snow, you very much risk sounding like a foreigner critizing their weather. If you wait for them to say something about it, you seem like a visitor with a remarkable insight into the Brittish weather by simply agreeing with everything they say.
“Horrible weather, isn’t it”
“Yes, but at least yesterday was lovely.”
“A bit cold though, but you’re right, sunshine is better than rain even if it is a bit chilly.”
“Quite so.”
“They say it might snow today.”
“Yes, that does seem likely.”
“Great day for it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, so lovely to get to see the sun. In February, too.”
“Almost forgotten it existed, eh, right, love?”
“Raining again, eh?”
“Yes, I really should have gotten an umbrella.”
“Ha, not from here, are you?”
One man even went so far as to show me the weather forecast on his phone, confirming the likelihood of snow, which I think shows that I’m making great progess in my conversations about the weather.
Brighton for me is the place where Lydia Bennet got into trouble. Jane Austen did not like Brighton. She once wrote in a letter to Cassandra: “I assure you that I dread the idea of going to Brighton as much as you do, but I am not without hopes that something may happen to prevent it”. And then: “Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.”
Well, all I can say is that she obviously never visited City Books. It is a charming bookshop in a charming town (perhaps more so now that the Prince Regent is no longer here), regularly organizing literary events and in general selling great books.
Their recommendation: We were liars by e. lockhart. I also got a lovely postcard to be able to write them and tell them what I thought about it, although I think I’ll have to get a Swedish one to do that, because I’m definitely not sending this postcard back to them.
It quickly became even more incomprehensible why people ever left Dulwich for something as dull as skiing, when they have not one, but two, absolutely lovely bookshops. Louise and I walked a very short bit, and visited awardwinning Village Books.
Their recommendation: The Devil in the Marshalsea. And I got a Books are my bag-bag. Such a great campaign.
I defy anyone to visit Dulwich books and not fall immediately in love with it. Louise and the cab driver talked about house prices on the way there, proving in a very reassuring way that certain topics are certainly universal, and then we arrived, on a sunny afternoon, to a shop that was quiet and warm and welcomming. “It’s mid-term, most people are away skiing.”
When they can visit their bookshop! What fools! But that of course only meant more tea and cake for me.
Their recommendation? Shotgun lovesongs. But since we also talked about books that were brilliant but difficult to recommend, I had to buy one of those as well. Louise understood.
Life is always sunny in a bookshopMy book! In an English bookshop! (although not out until June, but still!)
