Receipt from the Bookshop

My name is Katie and I am co-owner of an independent bookshop. I am, religiously, a bookshop lover. This year, I am an author ambassador for Independent Bookshop Week, because I’m also a writer. My latest book, Receipts from the Bookshop came out this month, and it’s been described as a love letter to bookshops. Something I’d never get tired of writing! Actually, with an impromptu afternoon to myself, I feel another one coming on right now… Bookshops, I love you.

Hello and a very soggy morning to you. Everyone who doesn’t have to go outside today has won! It’s completely miserable here. Damp, cold, wet underfoot and overhead. No passion to it either, just mulchy, disappointed drizzle in your cuffs and in your ears. A grim start indeed. Have already had a chat with the delivery man about it, we just said “it’s June!” at each other in varying tones of distress and disbelief.

The monthly round-ups are for paid subscribers. I’m doing it in two parts again because I haven’t written up the TV/Film stuff yet - that’ll follow in a separate post. Look, I said there wouldn’t be anything at all this week and I’ve ended up sending a post anyway, so half will have to do! I just worry about you getting your money’s worth (57p on an annual sub)! Five books here that are all so completely different to each other, I should have had whiplash switching between them.

Good morning friends, it is Friday morning on the 5th June and I’m here in the bookshop ready for another day of book sales, book orders, book enquiries, and let’s be honest, meeting lots of people who have no interest in buying a book at all, and probably over-hearing some people who actually have something against bookshops.

Book Club posts are for paid subscribers. A monthly subscription costs less than a one iced coffee. Ok to be fair, during a heatwave, I choose the iced coffee! But by choosing to subscribe you’re actually buying me an iced coffee - I love them, I don’t even want the expensive syrupy shite or the whipped cream on top. Anyway, huge thanks to my newest subscribers, I can’t wait to drink my iced coffee write for you.

The last one BEFORE the book is published Morning everyone! It’s half-term Friday and the breeze is back making it a much more pleasant temperature than it was earlier in the week when everyone was melting like Christopher Lloyd in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? because we all live in ancient houses with no air con. It’s perfectly pleasant in the shady bookshop today, and the trees are going nuts and it’s suitable for both hot and iced coffee. Ideal, really.

Good sport in novels: a discussion Hello to all my new subscribers, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ll be back in the bookshop on Friday, and I’ll tell you all about it in the free Receipt from the Bookshop then, but in the meantime today’s post is for my paid subscribers. The Book Club choice for May is here, the discussion thread will open next week. If you enjoy reading my work please consider a paid subscription to access everything. You can interview me for that promotion here.

WARMTH Good Morning! I know it’s considered completely uninspired and cliché to talk about the weather but honestly, whoever decided that was just in a bad mood. It was probably raining the day they made that stupid decision.

Dear Friends and beloved Readers of Receipts in America and Canada, It is finally time to release the horses you’ve been holding onto for so long, they’ve been ever so good, you’ve done really well. I am writing today to show you the cover for my book as published with William Morrow in September. The book that will, ideally, be sitting happily on the shelves in your local bookshops across the US and Canada this autumn.

Gooood Morniiiiing Receipters! It’s Friday and I am in the bookshop and I have BEATEN the delivery man (as in I was in here first, not like, GBH).