A walk around the old stomping ground - Arundel; progress on book 4 - Summer at The Secondhand Bookworm

A WALK AROUND THE OLD STOMPING

GROUND; ARUNDEL BOOKSHOP

HOME OF THE BOOKWORMS

A few weeks ago I took a walk around my local town of Arundel before visiting my cousin in the secondhand and antiquarian bookshop I helped to managed for 10 years. I like to pop in and catch up on new stock that has come in; it was always interesting when I ran the shop to discover some fascinating and fun books that people wished to sell, but I manage to curb the temptation to buy more books for myself now! The trouble with working in a secondhand bookshop is your wages can be transformed into books, and there is always the desperate need to snap up items you know don't come along very often.

I bought many hundreds, if not thousands, of books for stock over the years that I worked at the bookshop and it was often quite nerve-wracking when rare books were brought in for sale.

On one occasion a lady took me out to her car and I rummaged through several battered old boxes. I pulled out what I saw to be a really old edition of 'Jayne Eyre' which was missing a few pages but I thought would be of interest anyway and the woman was simply keen to get rid of it. It was super early, pretty much a first, and fetched a good price even though it was in bad condition. One of our regulars snapped it up because he had never read 'Jayne Eyre' before and fancied reading it in its original. He found the missing pages online, stuck them in and enjoyed the read!

Arundel is a great town to visit. There are passageways leading to antique centers and numerous eccentric and interesting shops. It has changed a lot since I worked there. The shop next door to the bookshop was called 'Secrets' and was there the whole ten years that I was. It changed hands into an antique shop just after I left. On my lunch breaks I would sometimes explore the antique shops for props for my film production company that, at the time, I was running with my sister on evenings and weekends. I would find some great things and the shop or stall owners kept an eye out for me for items such as tankards, carved wooden boxes and a medieval knight's helmet!

A lot of townsfolk were regulars at the bookshop. My cousin informed me that plenty of them still come in and ask for the same categories of books (5 years on). We also had regulars from different towns and even a yearly visitor from the USA who would email us before he was due with a list of books he was interested in and hoped we had in stock.

Trade customers were also a regular occurrence. Many of them were cheerful enough but there were certainly some difficult ones, demanding more than their trade discount of 10%.

Summer in Arundel is busy and buzzing especially during festival week. The town puts on many events including bands, plays, poetry reading, rides, markets and more. It was lots of fun placing special books in the window shelves, organizing bargain boxes for the pavement and observing the visitors. The musicians in the square opposite would drive me and my work colleagues a little mad, especially the steel drum band after a few hours of constant hammering.

This week I have broken the back of actually starting to write the first draft of book four in my bookshop series of novels: SUMMER AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM. 

I would love to have it available to read over the summer, but it will take some dedication. I spent a good few weeks really working hard on organizing the chapters and making sure all events, memories and sagas that I experienced over the summers in the bookshop are included. I even had a calls day again after having a break in book three from travelling about in the little bookworm van.

I love to spend time writing my bookshop novels.

The memories amuse me and the scenarios that unfold with customers and staff are funny and insightful. It's nice to write about the world of books and the workings of a rambling bookshop with three floors in an historic town on the south coast of England, especially when drawing upon ten years of experience and memories.

I'm looking forward to having BOOK 4 in my bookworm series of novels available as soon as possible. SUMMER AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM takes place during festival week. 

Here are a few things that occur:

There's a new member of staff, a trip to the New Castle, new stocks of books, deliveries of Penguin book jacket mugs, and postcards in the spinners outside; Georgina finally takes Charming Max to court to get her Dynorod money back, Roger has become a Buddhist, people endlessly try to bring their ice-creams into the shop, the Woman in Gold is sporting a bikini and the Goat-Lady's mother-in-law has died so that means Nora experiences a rather smelly call. The staff of the bookworm go down to the beach for a summer staff barbecue and of course there's no escaping the bookworms even there. Plenty of books come in for sale, Nora and Cara drive the van filled to the brim with books, Jason and Nora are nearly driven crazy by the banjo player in the town square and everyone is demanding stamps for their postcards!

I am keen to work on two chapters where I draw upon my memories of Jason Hill, a bookshop colleague who was killed in a helicopter crash in the grand canyon in February this year. He was 32 when he died but I worked with him when he was in hi late teens and early twenties. He certainly made a bookshop day amusing and enjoyable.

Jason Hill from Worthing who died in February 2018 and was
a work colleague at the bookshop

Jason pops up already in book three, CHRISTMAS AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM when Nora and her colleagues gather for an interesting staff Christmas meal at a local Chinese restaurant.

SUMMER AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM is coming soon.

The series of funny, lighthearted British novels can be read free with Kindle Unlimited and are also available in paperback through

AMAZON

More updates soon!