Tag Archives: used book stores

The law of unintended consequences

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Jack’s weekly guest blog today reveals the bookstore planning methodology.

Regular readers of this blog will recall my guest posts towards the end of last year describing the conversion of our basement from a dark dismal hole into a light and airy work-space for Wendy. I thought maybe that would be the last major building work for a while – – –

But there’s the other half of the basement, which remains in its original cobwebby state, replete with concrete floor, brick walls and exposed roof beams/wiring/water pipes et al. But not for long, for Wendy has been thinking – – –

When Wendy says “I’ve been thinking – -” I just know there’s going to be work to do. Her latest wheeze is to make the second floor of the bookstore into a proper eating establishment. To explain – we’ve had a food license for  few years, with the intention of serving lunches in the bookstore. However the ever increasing bookshelves mean we’ve never really had the room to do that except occasionally when requested.

But we spend most of our free time in the store anyway and only sleep upstairs and, besides, there’s a perfectly good kitchen and bathroom upstairs as well as a couple of good sized rooms and a spacious landing. One of these rooms is currently our bedroom, so – – –

The still-to-be-converted additional room in the basement will become our bedroom, thereby making the whole space into our living apartment. It has a door into the yard in which I’ll fit a dog flap, so Zora and Bert will still have access to the yard and a place to hang out inside. That will also mean they will no longer be barking at customers from behind the gate at the bottom of the main staircase.

As we discussed all this and began to think about food styles and menus, Wendy said – “you know, I’ve been thinking – -. We could extend the bookstore upstairs as well. You’d only need to make a few more bookshelves – – -”

Aaarrrggghhh!

We Have an Anchor

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It’s been a hard week here at the bookstore, and that’s a fact. Jack is getting on with the basement renovations, despite crazy weather (from 4 to 62 degrees Farenheit in two days?!) crooked walls, and mucked-up windows. I’m working my way through piles of donations from people who cleaned closets in January, and greeting new customers and new friends the book has brought us. Business is thriving.

But some outside pressures we need not go into have got me rattling just like the basement windows in these bitter winds: confused, pressured, cold and battered. Rattled.

Books are excellent therapy in such times. Walk the shelves, straightening and arranging; set the spines upright; run your fingers over familiar titles and remember when you read them. Breathe in the dust and ideas that float on the sunbeams of a second-hand books shop. Sit at the table and drink a cup of tea, surrounded by the weightiness of all those books holding the collected weight of human learning.

There’s a hymn that says, “We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened to the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Savior’s love.” 

I’m a person who believes in Jesus as He presented Himself, and who turns a suspicious eye toward many of those offering to interpret Him for the rest of us. Perhaps I have two anchors: the eternal one I neither take for granted nor feel compelled to force on others; and the “take time to think” drag force of 38,000 books, just sitting there, reasonable and silent, in a world full of people screaming for attention. Pull one down at random, read a page at random. Just breathe. Drink tea. Relax. Read about–learn from–someone else’s experiences.

Dust, ideas, silence. Peace in a buffer zone. Our bookshop is a space whose walls are lined floor to ceiling by books. Inside them are ideas enough to start a hundred revolutions, yet oddly enough I feel like they shelter me. They remind me that this too shall pass, that there is very little new under the sun, that how I feel now has been felt by hundreds of real people and fictional characters in the past, and will be in the future. It’s okay to be rattled; I’m in good company in these high winds.

We have, here in our little bookstore, an anchor and an Anchor. And that’s enough.