Sunday was Some Day

Today was the day of our first committee meeting (I can't think of another word that has 3 double letters in it like committee. Can you?).

Here's the idea of the committee.
"We're hoping to get together a group of people to help us decide the future direction of the bookshop. This could be about the kinds of events and initiatives you'd like to see us do, to how you think the shop looks and what can be done to improve our stock. The shop wouldn't survive without its customers and we've always tried to listen to any advice we're given. Having a committee will hopefully help us to focus on the things that matter"

We had no idea how many people would turn up, but suspected that there might be more than 6. There was more than 6.
The first person to (literally) press their face against the window was Isabel Losada, who's doing a couple of events at the shop later this year, which will be amazeballs (lol).
She was followed by Carmen, Aysha, Jacqui, Kevin, Galit, Jeremy, Vic, Matthew, Simon, Pete, Farah, Suze, Megan Caroline, Caleb, Lizzie,Rachel, Edwina, Rachella, Ben, Chris, Annabel, Kash, Liz, Edel, Alison, Nicky, James, Jo,Elizabeth, Carmel, Shazia, Cara, Omeed, Svein, Rob, Rosie, Ellie, Laura and I bet i've missed a few people out too. Tim and Mark were obviously there too.
The place was jammed (I didn't cry) and there were many emails and calls from people who wanted to come, but couldn't make it.
Here are some people who were there.

With the sheer number of people, it was difficult for everyone to have a chance to talk, and much of the meeting centred on what this committee was actually going to achieve. There were many opinions and suggestions which we asked everyone to write down on sheets of paper. We now have a brilliant overview of what people want at the bookshop and we'll consider all of this over the next day or two. Carmel is doing the minutes as we speak which we'll transcribe somewhere for all to see when we can. I want to say again how incredible it is that so many people were prepared to take the trouble to come to our shop on a cold Sunday morning to show their support. You are all ace.

The meeting was followed by a frankly crazy hour of shopping from those who came. Flippin eck.

After that was our monthly board games day at the shop (the last Sunday of every month, from 1-5pm. Don't miss it).

Ker-Plunk, Chess, Scrabble, Connect 4, plus others like Carcassonne, being played here.

So, another whopping day at the bookshop, filled with Jammie Dodgers, chocolate chip cookies and many cups of septum melting coffee.

I am now going to go through all the suggestions, comments and ideas that the committee came up with and possibly eat some more cheese.

WAIT!!!!!

isn't it Strugglometer time???

YES. Yes it is, that's the time it is. Another step or six towards our target of 'relative safety'.

I know I keep saying this, but, please keep reminding people that we're here, please keep pointing them towards the bookshop, please keep supporting us. It's been a great few days and I am slightly euphoric, but there's still a long way to go.
You are all spectacular and should this all succeed I will sing songs about each of you and perform an interpretive dance in a large green hat outside the shop. You don't want to miss that do you?

More Tears

Today should be made into a short film , shown on Channel 4 and win various awards at small festivals around Europe.

I woke at 6.50am to the sound of Ollie trying to get our attention by sneezing and rhythmically banging the back of his head against his cot. After taking him into the living room and placing the Old Macdonald musical Tractor in front of him, I looked out of the window.
If I had tweeted the moment, it would simply have declared 'RAIN!!!' (this will be the only use of exclamation marks in this blogpost, so enjoy them).
Rain isn't usually the ideal weather for shopping and I suspected that today might not turn out to be as rewarding as the huge lovely monster of a day that yesterday was.
I was so so wrong.

From the moment we opened the doors this morning there has been wave after wave of generosity and goodwill. A tsunami of love if you will.

Our first customer was Pamela, a lovely lady who picked up 3 out of print horror novels we'd found for her. She couldn't afford all of them but she paid for two and promised to come back and settle up when she had the money. She always does.

The trickle of customers started and pretty soon the shop was bustling with familiar faces and people that we'd never seen before. It was pretty obvious that most of these people had heard about our struggle and wanted to come and help.

Throughout the day it emerged that many of our customers and supporters were very good at spreading the word about the bookshop and conversations starting..."we heard about you ..." ended in various ways, including

• from my next door neighbour
• from Harringay Online
• in the pub last night
• on the bus
• on Twitter
• afer my friend posted about you on their blog
• from Facebook
• at our residents association meeting
• in Boots. A woman was telling everyone to come and buy books

These were all people who hadn't been here before and now felt that it was important enough to get in touch and help.

Our wonderful regular customers were also out in force today and I was moved to tears on more than one occassion by the generosity some people showed. From one young customer looking up at me and telling me ernestly 'I don't buy my books anywhere else', to the jaw droppingly kind offers made by some people that frankly still have my bottom lip quivering just writing this.

But Simon, what about the Strugglometer? I hear you cry.

Well, here you are.

Another mammoth day in which we pulled up to 18% of our 'relative safety' target. This is an incredible result after two days.

Tomorrow is our first committee meeting at the shop, so if you want to come along, we're meeting at 11.00am. I don't know if we have enough mugs to make coffee for everyone who's said they'll be there, so you might want to bring a thermos flask.

This is followed by board games tomorrow afternoon, so a full day awaits.

I'll post again soon.

Blimey.

Well, that was a bit of a day....

From the moment we let people know about our current situation things have gone haywire. We expected some kind of response, but we didn't realise how quickly things would take off.

Today has been our best Friday, er, ever and I don't think our email has ever been so busy.

I realise that this is just one day (and we need another 15 of these before we can relax a little), but the goodwill that has been shown has made me shed a tear on more than one occasion today.

We've tried to reply to all your messages, but if we haven't yet, then please understand, it's been very busy!

We shall try and keep you up to date with how we're getting on. The Bookseller, the Organ of the Book Trade (do they still use that subtitle) phoned us earlier to get the story for their magazine. I think the piece they did is great and it's attracted more and more people to the blog and website. The more comments that a Bookseller piece gets , the longer it tends to stay on the front page, so if anyone would like to offer a few words of support after the article then don't let me stop you.

Much like a Church Roof Fund, we have constructed a barometer that will give you some idea of how close to our target (our target being relatively safe). Day one has been awesome and we'll run the barometer all the way through until 'Gum Day'. This is Tuesday March 29th, the day that we are hoping that 350 excited children from lots of schools around Haringey will be meeting Andy Stanton, the author of the hilarious Mr Gum books, at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham. This is 32 days away.
This is the result on Day One.

An amazing 9% of our target has been reached in one single day. This is A GOOD THING.

We have the committee meeting on Sunday, which we're hoping will be well attended. This is where we are hoping to get together a group of our customers who will advise us on what direction the shop should go in future. More info can be found on our website here.

Then we have World Book Day next week where we'll be visiting 10 schools over the course of 2 days with 8 authors, which should be a lot of fun, and completely exhausting.

Most importantly though of course is that it's my son Ollie's first birthday next Wednesday, so we'll all be off out for a day of fun in a farm in Hertfordshire. I should probably let the farmer know about this.

And then the following week will be 'Buy One Extra Book' Week at the bookshop, which is what this whole campaign is leading up to.

So we have some exciting times in front of us. Please please keep reminding people that we're here. These next few weeks are so important.

(a less vague blogpost will be forthcoming when I have some sleep)

Please Help

We absolutely love it here at the Big Green Bookshop. These have been the most rewarding 3 years of our working lives and we really don’t want it to end. The decision to open came about when the Waterstone’s we managed in the shopping centre nearby was suddenly closed with little warning. The public outcry at this decision made our minds up. After a lot of effort, a considerable amount of help from some amazing people, our redundancy money and a large loan from the bank for our stock and the building, we finally opened the Big Green Bookshop on March 8^th 2008’

It’s just that we can’t really afford to have another nine months like the nine we just had, and despite all your amazing support we are struggling.

It was always our aim to try and be more than just a shop where you buy books, and since we opened we’ve tried to offer something for everyone:

• Author events including Will Self, Mark Billingham, David Vann, Karen Maitland, Christopher Fowler, Laura Dockrill, Magnus Mills and even Maisy Mouse!
• Musical evenings, film nights and historical walks
• Well over 300 visits so far to the local schools in Haringey, Enfield and Barnet helping them to promote literacy with author visits, talks, storytelling and whatever else we can.
• Monthly knitting groups, quizzes, writers groups and board games days (and we’re about to start a comedy night.)
• Two book groups.
• Weekly storytelling and singing for the under 5’s.
• Supporting local talent by holding book launches, poetry readings and talks by the cream of North London’s literary stars.
• Even a place to leave your shopping if it gets too heavy and to sit down with a free cup of tea or coffee.

The list could go on, but we hope you get the idea.

We sincerely hope that you want The Big Green Bookshop to remain here and value what we do and so we are asking for your help.

Our bank loan now has nine months to go until it’s paid off. This is our biggest single outgoing each month. Once the loan has been paid off we will be in a relatively stable position.

We want to address the short term issues and also the longer term ones, so;

Firstly

As our last newsletter announced, we’d like to set up The Big Green Bookshop Committee which will support the bookshop, offering suggestions & ideas to improve what we do for our customers in the future. The first meeting is this Sunday February 27^th at 11am. Please come along.

Secondly

It’s the 3^rd Anniversary of the Bookshop on March 8^th. During the week 6^th to 12^th March we’re asking you all to buy just one extra book from the Big Green Bookshop. We have over 1,000 people on our loyalty card scheme & many of you who are reading this who aren’t. If each of you bought one extra book this would pretty much guarantee our survival.

For those of you who cannot make it into the bookshop, but want to help, we take orders over the phone or on our website, and we’ve also set up a ‘donate now’ button at the top of this page if you have all the books you need but would still like to help us out.

We have some of the greatest customers in the world and we are constantly humbled by the support you show us.

Thanks for reading this message.

Simon, Tim and Mark

New Year Plans

Hello.

it's been a while hasn't it?

I thought it was about time we started doing this blog thing a bit more often , so this is the reasion I am writing this. So now you know.

Well, what can I tell you?

Firstly, and most importantly, we're still here. Which in the current climate, is worth mentioning. I think it's very sad that Prospero's Bookshop in Crouch End closed down on December 24th. The shop had been there for well over a decade and as I used to live in Crouch End when I first moved to London it was a bookshop that I visited on many occasions. And only being 20 minutes walk from us it was a bit of a shock.

And today we heard that British Bookshops has entered administration, which again raised questions about High Street bookselling. And if you add to that news of 20 Waterstone's closing this year after the HMV Group's poor Christmas, you may be thinking, 'blimey, bookshops are knackered'.

Well, let's hope not eh?

Christmas is over and despite the cruddy weather, our loyal band of customers braved the extremes to come and buy there literary goodies from us. Our flyering campaign brought in a lot of new customers too, so all in all it was an OK Christmas for us.

The Saturday before the big day is traditionally one of our busiest days and like the rest of the retail world we were looking forward to a bumper day of sales. Of course at about 10.30am the snow decided to fall at an alarming volume in the South East of England. Particularly Wood Green obviously. Traffic came to a standstill and we spent nervous moments looking out of the shop to see if we could see ANYONE brave enough to take on the blizzard.

One man who did was Phill Jupitus, who kindly agreed to come and visit us on that day to sign his book and to keep the punters happy. Here he is, with a very relieved looking me.

We'd also persuaded the Tottenham Choir to join us for carols as well and amazingly about 18 of them made it to the shop to add some festive fun.

Phill was great and spoke to everyone who came along and in the end stuck around for a couple of hours. And lots of people did come along too, which was great.

So, as we read stories in the newspapers the following Monday about how badly the shops had been affected by the snow over the weekend, we breathed a huge sigh of relief that the mighty Mr J and the lovely Tottenham Choir had visited and saved our weekend for a total whiteout.

So now it's January and we have corporation tax, 3 months rent and all the publishers bills to pay and things have calmed down a bit. It's not going to be an easy year, but we're going to go all out to make it amazing. We know that there are alternatives to buying books on the High Street, but we've always tried to be more than just a place that sells books. We hold book launches , comic & magazine launches, we have author talks, celebrity signings, author q + a's, readings, we've had stand up comedy, burlesque dancing, we visit schools with authors and even do workshops ourselves now, we have storytelling and singing (I have the voice of an angel) on Fridays, we have two reading groups, a writers group, we have a monthly quiz, the shop is used as a meeting place for local organinzations, we do poetry readings, we support local voluntary groups, we have a writer's surgery where authors come and talk to wannabe published authors to offer advice and we have free tea and coffee all day (usually). I'm sure there's stuff i've missed out, and I know there's stuff we have planned for this year that will be ace. Ultimately, we want to be an integral part of Wood Green's community and we hope that this is slowly becoming true.

We bloody love what we do and we bloody love where we're doing it, so on behalf of all bookshops (especially the indies), please keep supporting us.

Jonathan Franzen's Glasses

No, this isn't the name of a semi professional pub band from Macclesfield, this is a story which is sending shockwaves through the myopic world of publishing.
Last night, at his book launch, Jonathan Franzen, the hugely talented and critically acclaimed author of Freedom had his glasses stolen from off his face. The thieves left a ransom note demanding $100,000 and a hotmail address and fled.
Twitter broke the news and as I sat at home drinking a rather acceptable Kronenburg 1664 I thought a number of things.

• I don't beleive it.
• This is a publicity stunt by the publishers.
  
• I have had too many Kronenburgs
• Why are JF's glasses so special. Couldn't he just get another pair
• Has he not got a spare pair.
• What a bunch of meanies those theives must be to pick on speccy.

and then after i'd thought about all those things, I thought, well if it's any one of these things I could have a bit of fun here.

So I asked my girlfriend if I could photograph her glasses and I added this listing on ebay. It was magnificently amateurish (and childish) and I thought it might get a few laughs. So I tweeted 'Jonathan Franzen's stolen glasses found on ebay' and added a link to the listing.

I'm delighted to say that some people took it seriously and soon this news about Mr Franzen's glasses travelled through the world wide web and caused a few twitchy journalists to actually make this part of the news story. There have yet to be any bids...

Ah, the power of twitter.

Booker Boo

I need to stress a couple of things before we get to the main body of this blog.

1) I am in favour of the ManBooker prize.

2) We will be hosting our Booker Book Club for the second year. More details on our website.

That's all.

Right. I am not denying the ManBooker judges their right to be ManBooker judges. Oh no. Let's get that straight. They have all individually earned their places. Oh yes.

I just have a couple of observations about the whole Booker thing.

1) There are no fiction authors on the panel.

In case you are interested the panel is chaired by Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate, and the judges are Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic.

The Big Booker prize – as I understand it – is a celebration of literary fiction, isn’t it? Surely, then at least one of the judges should be a fiction author. Maybe it should be mandatory for the previous year’s winner to sit in judgement.

Let us examine the judges a little closer

Andrew Motion. No doubt he’s earned his place. Not a fiction author (according to one of my customers “Poetry is Truth” and therefore not fiction). Check out his ‘Selected Poems’ published by Faber and Faber.

Rosie Blau. No doubt she’s earned her place. Not a fiction author, but definitely an expert in the field of literary fiction.

Deborah Bull. No doubt she’s earned her place. Not a fiction author. She has written the ‘Faber Pocket Guide to Ballet’ published by Faber and Faber.

Tom Sutcliffe. No doubt he’s earned his place. Not a fiction author. He has written the ‘Faber Book of Opera’ and ‘Believing in Opera’ both published by Faber and er… Faber.

Frances Wilson. No doubt she’s earned her place. Not a fiction author. She has written ‘The Courtesan's Revenge: The Life of Harriette Wilson, the Woman Who Blackmailed the King’ and ‘The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth’ both of which are published by…. Well this is a little embarrassing… Faber and Faber.

Am I missing something?... Oh and....

2) The Faberulous Peter Carey looks favourite to win.

Cynical, me? Wouldn't it be terrible if somebody in the ManBooker organisation read this and took it personally. I'd better not post it.... Oh no I've gone and pressed the button now

Coffee, books, Wednesdays... The Perfect Combination.

On the first Wednesday of every month at about 11:00 one of our book groups gathers in Caffe Latino to do two things: drink coffee and discuss their book choice for that month. This is a picture of us, recently discussing The Seven Fires of Mademoiselle by Esther Vilar...

I say 'us' but obviously I'm not in the photo because I was taking it, and anyway you should all know what I look like by now. In case you've forgotten here I am without my glasses on:

Anyway, back to the book: Seven Fires is a delightfully romantic tale set in America in the sixties, featuring a diplomat's daughter and her arsonist nanny. We all agreed it was highly enjoyable, though perhaps becoming a fire starter is more likely to lead to a criminal record than a lasting relationship. In the past we have read; Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (excellent,) The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (also very good,) and Day by A.L. Kennedy (well I liked it, but everyone else... err... not so much.)

These are just a few of the books we have discussed over the past year or so, and there are many more to come: On Wednesday 1st September we will be discussing Jeff in Venice, Death in

Varanasi, and on Wednesday 6th October it'll be The Canal by Lee Rourke. If you would like to join us to discuss any of these books, you are welcome to come along, and the books are all on sale at the shop.

Finally I'd like to say thank you to Harriet and the staff at Caffe Latino on Wood Green High Road who have helped make the group such a success. They make great coffee and snacks too.

Scary Teddys.....Oh Yes

Imagine being stared at by a teddy-bear with buttons for eyes. Got it?

Now imagine that it's an evil teddy. Really, really evil......

What happens next?

That's what pupils at North Harringay School had to do for a competition to win Big Green Bookshop Vouchers. And here are the two winners.

I have with-held their names to protect you. These are two twisted kids.

Here's the first one...

The Mysterious buttons surrounded me. What are they doing to me? I tried to escape but there were creatures everywhere.

And buttons......

The Light shone up like a miracle had happened. The light dimmed again. The eyes were coming to hunt me....

I ducked down as the eyes tried to catch me. I dodged again and again.

“What do you want from me? I’m innocent. Please don’t hurt me.”

The stinky creatures came up from their graveyard and all the dead

people (such as Henry VIII)

The light shone again and time went back to how it was. Moving and moving. Ticking and tocking until a minute later.

Then time stopped again and everybody stood still, and everybody stared. Hard.

Who was everybody staring at? No. Eyes (or should I say the buttons?)

“Give us time back, before I make you!!” I shouted angrily. “Give us it now.”

And so he did, and life went back to peace again.

But not for long....

Ooooooooooh, Scary stuff! (This is actually a picture of me in the morning)

This is the second teddy based suspense story....

My head was spinning. I could see nothing but darkness. I felt so sick like I had just been on a whirling fast rollercoaster. Help! Where was I?

“Hello,” I whispered. “Hello,” I called, slightly louder.

“Hello.” The dark place echoed.

I could tell that I was inside, but I definitely saw stars. (It’s not a figment of my imagination) It must be an open roof. I (very cautiously) got up.

“Halt,” said a strange, low pitched voice. This was bare freaky, no actually, it was beyond freaky. I shrieked at the top of my voice. “Buttons!”

More of them. “Get him,” they said. Breaking the silence.

I started to run, but (even more strange) I didn’t go anywhere....

I couldn’t believe my eyes, not until I opened them. “Oh,” I said. I was so surprised that it was just a dream. That spoke out loud.

“Darling,” said Mum. I have sewed some more buttons on your school uniform. I hope you don’t mind.....”

This is the scariest teddy bear I could find.

More about my beard later

First Among Equals

Means best, really. Doesn’t it?

We issued our first loyalty cards a couple of weeks ago. And it was brilliant.....

But someone has to be first, don’t they. Really, really first. In front of everyone else. Seb Coe when we still liked him. Front of the queue. Numero Uno. A number one. Top of the heap. King of the hill. Etc, etc.

Anyway.

This lovely lady was our first ever customer back in March 2008.

And this lovely lady is our first Loyalty Card holder.

Wait a minute.... Isn’t that?... Yes. It’s the same person. And I’m wearing the same watch.

This is Aysha, and – apart from being our first ever customer – she has been a loyal supporter of the shop ever since. In the last couple of years she has had a number of other firsts. She got married to Jonny and changed her name (not to Jonny, I hasten to add) she let us use her kitchen to mull wine for our first Christmas party, and she had baby Lily (the last two are not connected).

The loyalty card is really taking off, and we have already signed up over two hundred people. We have decided to have some kind of loyalty card celebration/offer/event when we hit Five Hundred.

More about my watch, grey hair and beard later.