I’ve never thought of bookselling as being like match-making, but in a way it is – we’re a team of Cupids.
The shop has been buzzing like a beehive this week – not even the weather has put a dampener on the to-ing and fro-ing, the browsing and the bagging (paper!), the picking and the packing, the stickering and the stamping. The small brass bell on the door has sounded as though in a state of permanent announcement – a jaunty ‘hello’ and cheery ‘goodbye’ – adding to the soundscape of a place of busy business. An author in for a book signing, a visit to an author with books to be signed, an event at an Oxford college for International Women’s Day, emails from publishers with exciting news, lovely emails from customers from far afield who’ve stumbled across our online shop, lovely comments from customers in the shop. It all feels as though our book shop is not just a place to buy books, it’s a place of connections, of matches between all sorts of authors and all sorts of readers, and by extension, a place to be connected with others who love books. I’ve never thought of bookselling as being like match-making, but in a way it is – we’re a team of Cupids.
Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
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