Nora and the bookshop, The Secondhand Bookworm, the paperback room - series of novels
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In my fictional series of novels the paperback room features regularly. It is often a source of amusement or irritation, a place to meet locals, a place to spend hours tidying and sorting (such as with Paperback Pam) or a place to run up to as fast of possible and search the shelves for requested titles.
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In book 7 in The Secondhand Bookworm 'Book Club at The Secondhand Bookworm', the story opens with a new part-time member of staff who spends the whole day supposedly putting away a huge new stock of science fiction books.
Here is an excerpt:
“I do wish people would stop calling me Hugh Grant.” Tom announced smugly.
Nora looked at him.
“You don’t look like you’re in your late fifties or early sixties.” She pointed out.
Tom’s smug smile faded.
“Of course, they’re not referring to how he looks now, but to his dashing, gorgeous features when he was in Notting Hill.”
“Oh. Vain much?” Nora teased.
“I can’t help it if I make the ladies swoon.”
Nora rolled her eyes.
“Well, here’s the next batch of books to put away, Hugh.” She said, picked up a pile and loaded up his weedy arms.
“I think you’ll be pleased with the paperback room, especially the science fiction section. I’m doing a marvellous job.” He boasted.
“I’m sure you are. Are they all fitting in?”
“Leave it to me.” Tom said, flicked back his floppy fringe and set off once more.
Nora sighed. Since her colleague Cal had left for a new job at a publishing company in Piertown, Georgina had been trying out new members of staff to replace him. So far Nora had worked with a girl named Olivia who had cried all the time because she had broken up with her boyfriend, a boy named Parker who had shouted at people, and a woman named Rebecca who had contradicted the staff, the customers and even Georgina. Tom was the latest and he was a peacock.
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Tom came
downstairs at quarter to five.
“Well, I’m
very pleased with that. A good day’s work.” He boasted.
“I’ll have a
look; I need to use the ladies.” Nora smiled, grabbing the keys.
When she
walked into the paperback room and around the corner to the fantasy and sci-fi
section, Nora stopped dead.
Tom had
placed all the paperbacks on the floor in rows instead of on the shelves so
that there was no way anyone could walk in one quarter of the entire room. The
whole area was jam packed and looked terrible.
Nora
couldn’t believe it. She was confounded. Although the books were in
alphabetical order of author they were a mixture of subjects, with general
fiction placed among it all too. She shook her head and groaned aloud, taking
out her phone.
“Everything
alright?” Georgina’s merry voice answered.
She was
smiling on Facetime in her large rustic kitchen with Fluffy attacking something
on the worktop behind her.
“Erm…look…”
Nora said and turned the phone around.
She heard
Georgina’s shocked exclamation as Nora gave her a visual tour of the floor.
“What’s that
all about?!”
“Tom spent
the day doing it. I had no idea he was decorating the floor with the books. He
said he was doing a fantastic job and I assumed he was actually putting them on
the shelves!”
“That’s not
good.” Georgina said flatly. “Not good at all. No. We can’t have silliness like
that. Not at all.”
Nora felt
sorry for Tom but agreed.
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