One hesitates to admit to scuttling, but scuttle across the border we did until safely on the Welsh side. Rocco, my cuboid steed, was packed not with stock, but with holiday gear for the amusement of all. Diverse outlying relatives, both geographically and emotionally, were also to be visited. They might even enhance the vacation.
So with time on my side and traces of last night’s holiday jollies still exerting pressure inside the old bean I trundled into Oswestry, put in the legwork scouring the shopping zone and plumped for the Booka Bookshop café.
Or should it be Booka bookshop Café as for the life of me I can’t see how a bookshop, even a lovingly operated one such as this, can make money when crushed between the Scylla and Charybdis of Waterstones and Amazon. Who over 8 and under 55 buys a new book I mused? OAPs. Relatives seeking presents for children…What about general readers, the keyboard-toiling masses. What do they buy in a bricks-and-mortar shop? Or as I like to say, shop. Something that got a lot of press? The next series title that the author churned out but you quite liked the previous one so….?
Oswestry is a surprisingly arty spot. Inside the bookshop there is much pleasant space over two floors and an impressive wall of author-gig posters for this shop, the library and theatre. And what does the Oswestry Bookshop need to stock? Lots of celebrity biogs and auto-biogs. The word celebrity interpreted kindly in many cases. Some well-reviewed new fiction, the covers of which are amazing attractively designed nowerdays. Perhaps the words are just not enough anymore. Children’s books, health and wellness. Sci-Fi and murder Murder MURDER. Murders all concentrated around an Eeyore-lite, maverick detective operating alone or with a sensible sidekick, roaming a totally benign, previously crime-free rural area.
Rather like me and Sancho in the van.
Unlike the moody protagonists of these endless tomes, we however, do not attract homicides and revengeful serial killers like Pooh Bear to honey. Yet.
Could these detectives be doing the dirty deeds themselves? Attention-seeking behaviour, a cry for help? Justifying fictional police budgets? Just rubbish?
Hold your horses. These are the books that sell. Booka also has a comprehensive fiction section in fine taste. But lord, books seem so expensive in a Britannia groaning under charity shops who are actively turning away books.
How can an independent shop keep going? Booka Bookshop sports dedicated, literary staff, happy to recommend and freely giving the personal touch in a brave attempt to duel Amazon economic omnipotence. All without the buying discount of a chain. We must support them.
But many people browsed and left without buying a book, like me.
To business. Locating my posterior on a hard bench and slouching with lamentable posture on the utilitarian black table, I tackled a sublime pastrami bagel with enough horseradish to negate my hangover and a decent but unremarkable coffee. These arrived zippily and was not expensive.
Looking up from my gold-rimmed cup and saucer I noted they matched the blingingly gold-rimmed ceiling. A bit of thought has gone on here to make the most of a fairly plain space.
Booka is an excellent establishment making the best of bookselling.
I wish I had bought a book. You should, I can’t be trusted to.
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