SARAH SHAWTHE BOOK CORNER, HALIFAXwe caught up with Bookshop Hero & life-long bookseller Sarah Shaw of Halifax’s indie powerhouse, The Book Corner, to talk about their latest bestsellers, perennial staff picks, headliner events, & much, much more!“I absolutely loved it, stayed there, didn’t go to university or anything, just went and sold books. Twelve years later I was still there… |
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JR: For those who haven’t been to The Book Corner before can you give us a little introduction about where we can find you and what you’re all about?
SS: Yeah, well, The Book Corner was actually opened by Kate Claughan who owns The Book Case in Hebdon Bridge. She owns both shops. The Book Corner is entirely managed by myself but with three other colleagues, set up, well, it’ll be seven years in September since we fully opened. We were part of the regeneration of Halifax Piece Hall, which, I don’t know if you know a bit about the Piece Hall, but it’s a Georgian cloth hall. The only one in Europe, I believe, that’s still open. It’s a fantastic building, quite remarkable. You feel quite privileged to walk into it, to be honest. And it’s now full of independent shops - whereas in the past it was obviously, it was 18th century, it was a trading hall where you traded pieces of cloth, so that’s the Piece Hall. That’s why it’s called the Piece Hall - so now it’s full of independent shops. Us being one of the first ones to open here in 2017. The Piece Hall went through by one vote to keep it open, to regenerate it. And if you’ve never been it really is worth coming to because it is quite a magnificent building.
JR: Yeah, it’s beautiful, and you’ve got the courtyard in the middle.
SS: Yeah, the courtyard is where we have a whole summer of concerts. So, this year we got forty-three concerts planned in the Piece Hall - from, like, Tom Jones to Placebo. Everybody’s coming, basically. Underworld, PJ Harvey. So, the summer is incredible here. Where other shops struggle a little bit in the summer, we’re really fortunate because it’s just full of tourists.
That’s us in a nutshell. The Book Corner itself is a finely curated bookshop, I would say. Fifty per cent of it is children’s; it’s two rooms basically, it’s half-half. Very strong on fiction and children’s books, gift - because of the tourists - so, like, the Macmillan Classics, we sell loads of. A good non-fiction sedition as well, very strong local section. I’ve been personally in books for, I don’t like to say it, but this will be my fortieth year! I think by now I sort of know what I’m doing. I started in the independent back in Leeds when I was seventeen doing my A-levels. So now I’m fifty-seven and still doing it.
JR: Still thriving and still loving it by the sounds of it.
SS: I do! I still get a real kick out of it. I’m a bit obsessive, as my colleagues will tell you. I sort of ring them every hour or check on them; make sure they give me a full report of what’s sold if I’m not here.
JR: Sure, sure. I guess you do have to keep your finger on it, don’t know?
SS: Yeah, but I’ve always loved it really. I was working in Leeds and there was a great independent family bookshop called Austicks, I don’t know if you know, back in the day. They had ten bookshops in Leeds city centre. And then they closed down and I went to work for Waterstines and managed there for ten years or so as well, then I did my horrible period of WHSmiths.
JR: Oh, really?
SS: Yeah, that was ten years as well. That was the hardest!
JR: So, did you go from Smiths to The Book Corner, did you?
SS: Yeah, yeah. Kevin Duffy, actually - I’m good friends with Kevin Duffy from Bluemoose - he said, ‘Get out of Smiths and come and manage this shop in the Piece Hall!’ So, yeah, and I love it, absolutely love it!
JR: I definitely want to talk to you a bit more about your background and getting into bookselling, Sarah, and actually a little bit more about Kevin as well, and Bluemoose, and all the kind of work you’ve done over the years, but let’s stay focussed on the shop a little bit longer. Can you give us an idea of the size of the shop? I’m not great with square feet, or whatever, it doesn’t really help me, but how many books do you have in stock, do you know?
SS: That’s a good question… Well, I can tell you my stock value is currently about £35,000, so you get an idea from there. Obviously, that grows and decreases after Christmas; so, at Christmas, I was on about £60,000.
JR: And I bet you’ve just had a big period of returns.
SS: Yeah, I’ve got eight boxes in front of me. At the moment our current value is £33,449. And number of titles in stock is 2365, number of books is 3,036.
JR: Sure, I can get a picture of that.
SS: We’re a similar size to The Grove Bookshop [Ilkley]. They’re old colleagues of mine, actually. Mike and Neil and all of them. We’re a similar size to them but with a much stronger focus on kids' books.
JR: Yeah, so online it implies that you’re a bit more of a kids specialist, is that fair?
SS: I think Kate, when she opened the shop was very much a kids specialist and was selling kids' books for a long time. I ran a kids section in Waterstones for quite a time, so I would say we’re a kids specialist but I will say our strongest section is still the adult’s side and the fiction side of things. It’s very carefully curated, we don’t sell mass-market stuff at all really. I mean, we’ll still stock Osmans and things like that at Christmas but we are quite selective, we don’t try to compete with Smiths which is around the corner, we just don’t bother.
JR: How do you find managing that stock then, is that primarily your job?
SS: Yeah.
JR: How big is your team? Do you share out roles a bit?
SS: We do a little bit. I’ve got a very strong team. I’ve got Louise who worked in London at Stoke Newington Bookshop, so she came as an experienced bookseller. And then I’ve got Gerogie who was new to the role, and she’s brilliant, got the bug immediately - that bookshop bug. I do most of the new title buying, they do the stock ordering and I give them sections - like, Georgie is in charge of poetry and Louise is in charge of a lot of the kid's side of things. And then I’ve got two weekenders as well, there’s Mark and Crystal. So, yeah it’s only a small team, there’s only five of us. Kate, the owner, will now and again pop in and she’ll cover if I'm away on holiday or whatever. But that’s it, that’s us.
JR: It sounds like you’ve got a passionate small team though.
SS: Absolutely!
JR: For those maybe not so used to the area, Halifax has got a great historic core to it, that market town, and obviously it’s got a good reputation for books as well.
SS: Yeah, I think the thing is we have a very strong local customer base but then we’ve got the added bonus of a really strong tourist trade as well. I mean, we’ve grown year on year, every year. Some years ridiculously. Like, last year was more of a struggle but the year before we were up on the year before that. Its reputation has definitely grown amongst the loyal, the local. We’re becoming very well known locally. But also, the Piece Hall has had more and more visitors and we really benefit from that as well. Like when Boy George played last year we hundreds of teenage girls coming in the shop buying. Books in translation we do fantastic with; we also have a section that was started the first day we opened called ‘Short But Not Necessarily Sweet’ and it’s just books under two hundred pages and it’s just a small table but we’re always changing it, it does so well.
We know what we’re good at, we work to our strengths I suppose. And we are a bit of a community hub as well and we have customers who come in literally every single day. Ross, one of our customers, buys a book every day. So we have that local support, which is fantastic, you know.
JR: It is, especially considering the size of the shop. That must make a massive difference in your slightly quieter months.
SS: It’s nice that you’ve got people popping in all the time, you know, we never really have a quiet month. Our January, it’s not bad at all. When I look at some people’s shops and they’re struggling to do fifty quid a day sometimes.
JR: Oh, god, I know! And that’s got to be a great sign for the area. You’ve already mentioned Hebden Bridge and The Book Case, they’re relatively close to you but even in Halifax do you have any other booksellers?
SS: Well, we haven’t anymore. We used to have one but that’s closed actually. Brames is still there, that’s a secondhand bookshop, that’s still there. And there’s a new guy called Stephen Conway who’s a bookbinder and he’s now selling beautiful books as well. And then there’s The Thoughtful Spot which unfortunately hasn’t worked, I don’t think. It’s just a little bit out of town. I think they might’ve sold the business, I think I heard.
JR: yeah, I’d heard that Steven was local. But quite niche.
SS: Definitely but he’s a superb bookbinder actually.
JR: If you look at the shops that are closing at the minute and how tough it’s been, just getting through lockdown has been hard enough for most people. How did you find that period?
SS: Um, actually, I loved it! It was really nice having that time off and actually spending some time drinking in the garden! But for the shop, we did click and collect when we could, when we were allowed. We didn’t really do an awful lot, to be honest with you. We built up the website a little bit and we did click and collect when we were able but generally, we just enjoyed the time off. That sounds terrible but it’s true. And then it was great when we reopened, you know. We just couldn’t wait to get back into the shop, basically.
SS: Yeah, well, The Book Corner was actually opened by Kate Claughan who owns The Book Case in Hebdon Bridge. She owns both shops. The Book Corner is entirely managed by myself but with three other colleagues, set up, well, it’ll be seven years in September since we fully opened. We were part of the regeneration of Halifax Piece Hall, which, I don’t know if you know a bit about the Piece Hall, but it’s a Georgian cloth hall. The only one in Europe, I believe, that’s still open. It’s a fantastic building, quite remarkable. You feel quite privileged to walk into it, to be honest. And it’s now full of independent shops - whereas in the past it was obviously, it was 18th century, it was a trading hall where you traded pieces of cloth, so that’s the Piece Hall. That’s why it’s called the Piece Hall - so now it’s full of independent shops. Us being one of the first ones to open here in 2017. The Piece Hall went through by one vote to keep it open, to regenerate it. And if you’ve never been it really is worth coming to because it is quite a magnificent building.
JR: Yeah, it’s beautiful, and you’ve got the courtyard in the middle.
SS: Yeah, the courtyard is where we have a whole summer of concerts. So, this year we got forty-three concerts planned in the Piece Hall - from, like, Tom Jones to Placebo. Everybody’s coming, basically. Underworld, PJ Harvey. So, the summer is incredible here. Where other shops struggle a little bit in the summer, we’re really fortunate because it’s just full of tourists.
That’s us in a nutshell. The Book Corner itself is a finely curated bookshop, I would say. Fifty per cent of it is children’s; it’s two rooms basically, it’s half-half. Very strong on fiction and children’s books, gift - because of the tourists - so, like, the Macmillan Classics, we sell loads of. A good non-fiction sedition as well, very strong local section. I’ve been personally in books for, I don’t like to say it, but this will be my fortieth year! I think by now I sort of know what I’m doing. I started in the independent back in Leeds when I was seventeen doing my A-levels. So now I’m fifty-seven and still doing it.
JR: Still thriving and still loving it by the sounds of it.
SS: I do! I still get a real kick out of it. I’m a bit obsessive, as my colleagues will tell you. I sort of ring them every hour or check on them; make sure they give me a full report of what’s sold if I’m not here.
JR: Sure, sure. I guess you do have to keep your finger on it, don’t know?
SS: Yeah, but I’ve always loved it really. I was working in Leeds and there was a great independent family bookshop called Austicks, I don’t know if you know, back in the day. They had ten bookshops in Leeds city centre. And then they closed down and I went to work for Waterstines and managed there for ten years or so as well, then I did my horrible period of WHSmiths.
JR: Oh, really?
SS: Yeah, that was ten years as well. That was the hardest!
JR: So, did you go from Smiths to The Book Corner, did you?
SS: Yeah, yeah. Kevin Duffy, actually - I’m good friends with Kevin Duffy from Bluemoose - he said, ‘Get out of Smiths and come and manage this shop in the Piece Hall!’ So, yeah, and I love it, absolutely love it!
JR: I definitely want to talk to you a bit more about your background and getting into bookselling, Sarah, and actually a little bit more about Kevin as well, and Bluemoose, and all the kind of work you’ve done over the years, but let’s stay focussed on the shop a little bit longer. Can you give us an idea of the size of the shop? I’m not great with square feet, or whatever, it doesn’t really help me, but how many books do you have in stock, do you know?
SS: That’s a good question… Well, I can tell you my stock value is currently about £35,000, so you get an idea from there. Obviously, that grows and decreases after Christmas; so, at Christmas, I was on about £60,000.
JR: And I bet you’ve just had a big period of returns.
SS: Yeah, I’ve got eight boxes in front of me. At the moment our current value is £33,449. And number of titles in stock is 2365, number of books is 3,036.
JR: Sure, I can get a picture of that.
SS: We’re a similar size to The Grove Bookshop [Ilkley]. They’re old colleagues of mine, actually. Mike and Neil and all of them. We’re a similar size to them but with a much stronger focus on kids' books.
JR: Yeah, so online it implies that you’re a bit more of a kids specialist, is that fair?
SS: I think Kate, when she opened the shop was very much a kids specialist and was selling kids' books for a long time. I ran a kids section in Waterstones for quite a time, so I would say we’re a kids specialist but I will say our strongest section is still the adult’s side and the fiction side of things. It’s very carefully curated, we don’t sell mass-market stuff at all really. I mean, we’ll still stock Osmans and things like that at Christmas but we are quite selective, we don’t try to compete with Smiths which is around the corner, we just don’t bother.
JR: How do you find managing that stock then, is that primarily your job?
SS: Yeah.
JR: How big is your team? Do you share out roles a bit?
SS: We do a little bit. I’ve got a very strong team. I’ve got Louise who worked in London at Stoke Newington Bookshop, so she came as an experienced bookseller. And then I’ve got Gerogie who was new to the role, and she’s brilliant, got the bug immediately - that bookshop bug. I do most of the new title buying, they do the stock ordering and I give them sections - like, Georgie is in charge of poetry and Louise is in charge of a lot of the kid's side of things. And then I’ve got two weekenders as well, there’s Mark and Crystal. So, yeah it’s only a small team, there’s only five of us. Kate, the owner, will now and again pop in and she’ll cover if I'm away on holiday or whatever. But that’s it, that’s us.
JR: It sounds like you’ve got a passionate small team though.
SS: Absolutely!
JR: For those maybe not so used to the area, Halifax has got a great historic core to it, that market town, and obviously it’s got a good reputation for books as well.
SS: Yeah, I think the thing is we have a very strong local customer base but then we’ve got the added bonus of a really strong tourist trade as well. I mean, we’ve grown year on year, every year. Some years ridiculously. Like, last year was more of a struggle but the year before we were up on the year before that. Its reputation has definitely grown amongst the loyal, the local. We’re becoming very well known locally. But also, the Piece Hall has had more and more visitors and we really benefit from that as well. Like when Boy George played last year we hundreds of teenage girls coming in the shop buying. Books in translation we do fantastic with; we also have a section that was started the first day we opened called ‘Short But Not Necessarily Sweet’ and it’s just books under two hundred pages and it’s just a small table but we’re always changing it, it does so well.
We know what we’re good at, we work to our strengths I suppose. And we are a bit of a community hub as well and we have customers who come in literally every single day. Ross, one of our customers, buys a book every day. So we have that local support, which is fantastic, you know.
JR: It is, especially considering the size of the shop. That must make a massive difference in your slightly quieter months.
SS: It’s nice that you’ve got people popping in all the time, you know, we never really have a quiet month. Our January, it’s not bad at all. When I look at some people’s shops and they’re struggling to do fifty quid a day sometimes.
JR: Oh, god, I know! And that’s got to be a great sign for the area. You’ve already mentioned Hebden Bridge and The Book Case, they’re relatively close to you but even in Halifax do you have any other booksellers?
SS: Well, we haven’t anymore. We used to have one but that’s closed actually. Brames is still there, that’s a secondhand bookshop, that’s still there. And there’s a new guy called Stephen Conway who’s a bookbinder and he’s now selling beautiful books as well. And then there’s The Thoughtful Spot which unfortunately hasn’t worked, I don’t think. It’s just a little bit out of town. I think they might’ve sold the business, I think I heard.
JR: yeah, I’d heard that Steven was local. But quite niche.
SS: Definitely but he’s a superb bookbinder actually.
JR: If you look at the shops that are closing at the minute and how tough it’s been, just getting through lockdown has been hard enough for most people. How did you find that period?
SS: Um, actually, I loved it! It was really nice having that time off and actually spending some time drinking in the garden! But for the shop, we did click and collect when we could, when we were allowed. We didn’t really do an awful lot, to be honest with you. We built up the website a little bit and we did click and collect when we were able but generally, we just enjoyed the time off. That sounds terrible but it’s true. And then it was great when we reopened, you know. We just couldn’t wait to get back into the shop, basically.
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JR: And it sounds like you’ve gone from strength to strength since then. The shop’s been shortlisted for regional bookseller of the year a few times, haven’t you?
Obviously, you’re getting so much footfall and so much attention not just regionally but nationally! SS: Yes. We didn’t go for it this year, with the bookshop thing. Because, to be honest with you, we fed it back to The Bookseller, I just find it quite insulting that they just call it ‘The North’ when there’s so many of us in the North, you know. So, no, we’re not doing it again. It felt like we were just - it’s quite hard work putting all that together. So, yeah, we decided to give it a miss this year. But every time we have entered we have been shortlisted, actually. JR, I mean, it’s mad to think. You look at the north and the vast spaces we’ve got to fill and all of the amazing bookshops dotted around. SS: Oh, I know. I think there are more that have opened in Yorkshire than pretty much anywhere. JR: And you mentioned Mike and The Grove and you look at how well they’re doing. Obviously, it’s very touristy, but the Yorkshire Dales have a lot more to offer than just walking. |
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SS: Exactly, yeah. I think that’s really true. There’s a new bookshop just opened not far from us in Slaithwaite, another new bookshop’s just opened. I think quite a small but great little town near Huddersfield. They’re popping up all over the place, everywhere you look now, market towns. I think there’s another little one opening in Pateley Bridge as well.
JR: You seem to be bucking the trend, really, nationally. You’ve got so many other businesses, not just bookshops, shutting down.
SS: Absolutely, yeah. I think people want physical books again, don’t they? I think the Kindle had its moment but I think everybody got fed up with it and just wanted physical, they wanted to hold a book.
JR: Physical books, sure, but also physical, real-life events, as well. Going out and meeting authors again.
SS: Yeah, well I’ll let you a little about that as well! The second year we opened we started doing our own festival called the Halifax Festival of Words which we do with The Grayston Unity, which is a local independent bar, and we do a mixture of poetry, music, author events, and workshops. We’ve done three so far and we’re just about to embark on our fourth Festival of Words. It’s now called the Town Festival.
JR: Yeah, and that’s this October, right?
SS: Yeah, yeah. So We’re doing that, and we’ve got some good names - we’ve got Stuart Maconie, he’s just confirmed he’ll come; Dave Hepworth’s coming. We do quite a lot of music, and we’ve got a strong music section, as well. We’ve done some events with John Robb. So yeah, we’re quite excited to get on with our next festival.
JR: And you do events in-store as well, don’t you? You’ve got The Pirate Dragon book launch coming up this month. You’ve done quite a lot with Simon Armitage too, haven’t you?
SS: He’s our bezzie mate is Simon! He’s coming again on the 10th of April, actually. We sort of stalk him a little bit, because we love him. We’re really into his band called LYR, so now he sees us at his band’s events and his poetry events and then I hassle him to come and do signings in the shop. He’s very accommodating and he’s coming again, so…
JR: It must work for you. Does he sell quite well?
SS: Oh, absolutely! I mean, if we do events with him in Marsden where he’s from, if we go over to his church when he’s doing a poetry night, you’re literally talking fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds worth that we can easily sell, which is a nice event and nice and easy. You know that you’re going to sell the books, which is always good.
We do smaller ones as well. We’ve got Isaac Rose coming who’s written a book called The Rentier City which is about neoliberalism in Manchester. So that’ll be interesting. We’ve got Andrew McMillan coming with Joelle Taylor. So yeah, we’ve got a few things lined up. We’re going to really focus on events this year again. I felt like, after the first pandemic, I felt quite nervous about them. But we feel like we’re definitely back on board with them again.
JR: And you can clearly get in an audience. I think that’s what a lot of people are struggling with at the minute.
SS: Yeah, I mean, some are trickier than others, obviously. We’ve done some great ones, actually. Local ones always really work. We did something called Weird Calderdale which is all about the spooky history of the Calderdale area and we did it at the industrial museum. We try and take things out into the town because we do live in a bit of a bubble in the Piece Hall and the rest of Halifax isn’t having the same great times as we are, so we try and go out into town and do events in other places. Like The Grayston Unity, it’s a great bar, but if we have someone like John Robb, we’d take him to the bar. And it works, it definitely works for us to go out.
JR: I was sorry not to make it down when your Christ On A Bike event had to be cancelled.
SS: Aww, yeah. We’re going to reschedule, that’s definitely going to be rescheduled. Kevin’s promised that she’ll come again. I think she lived down in Brighton or somewhere, but I think she’s coming up for the Kendal Festival so she might come back here on the way.
JR: So, let's talk about Bluemoose Books then and your relationship with Kevin. I mean, when did that all start?
SS: I’ve known Kevin probably, out of the forty years of bookselling, I’ve probably known him for thirty! He used to be a rep and I used to buy books from him when I worked at Austicks all those many years ago. He used to sell books for Kogan Page which is a business publisher. He’s worked for numerous people, I can’t even remember half of them. And then, obviously, when we opened here I really wanted to support him and what he was doing, and we do lots of promotions with him. He’s been the patron of our festival. And just a generally all-round good guy. He’s obviously got a bee in his bonnet about certain things, but he’s a top man.
JR: And do Bluemose titles typically work quite well for you?
SS: Well, Christ On A Bike, even though the event didn’t happen, we sold thirty-five copies which is, you know, decent. But The Gallows Pole was the one that really started it off. Do you know about The Gallows Pole?
JR: Well, yes. I was going to ask about Ben, actually.
SS: Benjamin Myers is our bestselling author and has been since day one since we opened. But The Gallows Pole has sold over 3,000 copies!
JR: Which is amazing!
SS: It’s incredible. And when it was with Bluemoose, when it was first published by Bluemoose Books, we sold over a thousand of his Bluemoose edition. And now of course in Bloomsbury, every single week it’s in our top ten without fail. I don’t think it’s ever not been there. So, we’re very, very lucky to have Ben Myers as part of our profile, really.
JR: And he can be a little reluctant to do events and signings, can’t he? But I know he’s quite keen on coming to you.
SS: Yeah, but he won’t ever do it publicly. He’ll just sit quietly, you know, and sign in the corner. I’ve tried and tried but I’m not going to hassle him anymore. It gives him anxiety, so…
JR: And you know, the books sell themselves.
SS: Exactly! And I mean, he’ll come and sign them happily, and he’ll talk to people while he’s here. Cuddy is doing extremely well for us, as well.
JR: He just seems to keep producing great books.
SS: yeah, I think the next one’s going to be quite different. Rare Singles seems possibly a bit more mass market. Looking at it, I saw the cover the other day. It’s certainly not like his previous one, but I think that shows what Ben’s about. Because he’s a master. You know, The Offing was very different to The Gallows Pole.
JR: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think even his slightly more niche stuff, like The Perfect Golden Circle, I loved.
SS: I did. I really loved it, yeah. Whereas Turning Blue, I can’t even read it! It’s just too dark for me. It’s just too dark.
But I tell you what I’ve just read, which I found wonderful, is Ronan [Hession]’s new book, Ghost Mountain.
JR: Yeah! I was going to ask you about that because you’re doing a launch in May, aren’t you?
SS: Yes. I mean, I just loved Leonard and Hungry Paul. We all loved it and that’s why he came here to launch Leonard, because we were all raving about it. And I think Ghost Mountain is superb and I’ve absolutely loved it. That’s been my favourite book of this year, really.
JR: That’s going to be a stand-out book for a lot of people, isn’t it?
SS: I think so. I think it’s going to be quite sad because I think, I imagine it was a three-book deal with Kevin. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
JR: Yeah, to see if the Ben Myers thing happens or not.
SS: Yeah, yeah. It could be quite sad for Kevin. I think he might’ve done alright out of it, I hope he has.
JR: I think it’ll still bring people to his doorstep one way or another.
SS: I think that’s true. I was really pleased when Bloomsbury did Gallows that they kept that cover.
JR: yes! It’s so striking.
SS: It’s iconic. Really.
JR: But you’ve other iconic, more historic authors connected to Halifax as well, don’t you? You’ve got Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, the Brontes, and there’s an Anne Lister connection as well.
SS: Oh! The Ann Lister thing is absolutely unbelievable. The Anne Lister festival is happening again the first week of April and literally, you get two, three, four hundred lesbians arriving from America and Germany and, you know, all over the place. It’s like a convention, an Anne Lister convention. And it’s great for us. I mean, the first year was just incredible, we couldn’t keep the books on the shelves. It’s probably gotten a bit quieter as the years have gone by but still, the Anne Lister effect is definitely a good thing for us.
JR: You seem to be bucking the trend, really, nationally. You’ve got so many other businesses, not just bookshops, shutting down.
SS: Absolutely, yeah. I think people want physical books again, don’t they? I think the Kindle had its moment but I think everybody got fed up with it and just wanted physical, they wanted to hold a book.
JR: Physical books, sure, but also physical, real-life events, as well. Going out and meeting authors again.
SS: Yeah, well I’ll let you a little about that as well! The second year we opened we started doing our own festival called the Halifax Festival of Words which we do with The Grayston Unity, which is a local independent bar, and we do a mixture of poetry, music, author events, and workshops. We’ve done three so far and we’re just about to embark on our fourth Festival of Words. It’s now called the Town Festival.
JR: Yeah, and that’s this October, right?
SS: Yeah, yeah. So We’re doing that, and we’ve got some good names - we’ve got Stuart Maconie, he’s just confirmed he’ll come; Dave Hepworth’s coming. We do quite a lot of music, and we’ve got a strong music section, as well. We’ve done some events with John Robb. So yeah, we’re quite excited to get on with our next festival.
JR: And you do events in-store as well, don’t you? You’ve got The Pirate Dragon book launch coming up this month. You’ve done quite a lot with Simon Armitage too, haven’t you?
SS: He’s our bezzie mate is Simon! He’s coming again on the 10th of April, actually. We sort of stalk him a little bit, because we love him. We’re really into his band called LYR, so now he sees us at his band’s events and his poetry events and then I hassle him to come and do signings in the shop. He’s very accommodating and he’s coming again, so…
JR: It must work for you. Does he sell quite well?
SS: Oh, absolutely! I mean, if we do events with him in Marsden where he’s from, if we go over to his church when he’s doing a poetry night, you’re literally talking fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds worth that we can easily sell, which is a nice event and nice and easy. You know that you’re going to sell the books, which is always good.
We do smaller ones as well. We’ve got Isaac Rose coming who’s written a book called The Rentier City which is about neoliberalism in Manchester. So that’ll be interesting. We’ve got Andrew McMillan coming with Joelle Taylor. So yeah, we’ve got a few things lined up. We’re going to really focus on events this year again. I felt like, after the first pandemic, I felt quite nervous about them. But we feel like we’re definitely back on board with them again.
JR: And you can clearly get in an audience. I think that’s what a lot of people are struggling with at the minute.
SS: Yeah, I mean, some are trickier than others, obviously. We’ve done some great ones, actually. Local ones always really work. We did something called Weird Calderdale which is all about the spooky history of the Calderdale area and we did it at the industrial museum. We try and take things out into the town because we do live in a bit of a bubble in the Piece Hall and the rest of Halifax isn’t having the same great times as we are, so we try and go out into town and do events in other places. Like The Grayston Unity, it’s a great bar, but if we have someone like John Robb, we’d take him to the bar. And it works, it definitely works for us to go out.
JR: I was sorry not to make it down when your Christ On A Bike event had to be cancelled.
SS: Aww, yeah. We’re going to reschedule, that’s definitely going to be rescheduled. Kevin’s promised that she’ll come again. I think she lived down in Brighton or somewhere, but I think she’s coming up for the Kendal Festival so she might come back here on the way.
JR: So, let's talk about Bluemoose Books then and your relationship with Kevin. I mean, when did that all start?
SS: I’ve known Kevin probably, out of the forty years of bookselling, I’ve probably known him for thirty! He used to be a rep and I used to buy books from him when I worked at Austicks all those many years ago. He used to sell books for Kogan Page which is a business publisher. He’s worked for numerous people, I can’t even remember half of them. And then, obviously, when we opened here I really wanted to support him and what he was doing, and we do lots of promotions with him. He’s been the patron of our festival. And just a generally all-round good guy. He’s obviously got a bee in his bonnet about certain things, but he’s a top man.
JR: And do Bluemose titles typically work quite well for you?
SS: Well, Christ On A Bike, even though the event didn’t happen, we sold thirty-five copies which is, you know, decent. But The Gallows Pole was the one that really started it off. Do you know about The Gallows Pole?
JR: Well, yes. I was going to ask about Ben, actually.
SS: Benjamin Myers is our bestselling author and has been since day one since we opened. But The Gallows Pole has sold over 3,000 copies!
JR: Which is amazing!
SS: It’s incredible. And when it was with Bluemoose, when it was first published by Bluemoose Books, we sold over a thousand of his Bluemoose edition. And now of course in Bloomsbury, every single week it’s in our top ten without fail. I don’t think it’s ever not been there. So, we’re very, very lucky to have Ben Myers as part of our profile, really.
JR: And he can be a little reluctant to do events and signings, can’t he? But I know he’s quite keen on coming to you.
SS: Yeah, but he won’t ever do it publicly. He’ll just sit quietly, you know, and sign in the corner. I’ve tried and tried but I’m not going to hassle him anymore. It gives him anxiety, so…
JR: And you know, the books sell themselves.
SS: Exactly! And I mean, he’ll come and sign them happily, and he’ll talk to people while he’s here. Cuddy is doing extremely well for us, as well.
JR: He just seems to keep producing great books.
SS: yeah, I think the next one’s going to be quite different. Rare Singles seems possibly a bit more mass market. Looking at it, I saw the cover the other day. It’s certainly not like his previous one, but I think that shows what Ben’s about. Because he’s a master. You know, The Offing was very different to The Gallows Pole.
JR: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think even his slightly more niche stuff, like The Perfect Golden Circle, I loved.
SS: I did. I really loved it, yeah. Whereas Turning Blue, I can’t even read it! It’s just too dark for me. It’s just too dark.
But I tell you what I’ve just read, which I found wonderful, is Ronan [Hession]’s new book, Ghost Mountain.
JR: Yeah! I was going to ask you about that because you’re doing a launch in May, aren’t you?
SS: Yes. I mean, I just loved Leonard and Hungry Paul. We all loved it and that’s why he came here to launch Leonard, because we were all raving about it. And I think Ghost Mountain is superb and I’ve absolutely loved it. That’s been my favourite book of this year, really.
JR: That’s going to be a stand-out book for a lot of people, isn’t it?
SS: I think so. I think it’s going to be quite sad because I think, I imagine it was a three-book deal with Kevin. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
JR: Yeah, to see if the Ben Myers thing happens or not.
SS: Yeah, yeah. It could be quite sad for Kevin. I think he might’ve done alright out of it, I hope he has.
JR: I think it’ll still bring people to his doorstep one way or another.
SS: I think that’s true. I was really pleased when Bloomsbury did Gallows that they kept that cover.
JR: yes! It’s so striking.
SS: It’s iconic. Really.
JR: But you’ve other iconic, more historic authors connected to Halifax as well, don’t you? You’ve got Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, the Brontes, and there’s an Anne Lister connection as well.
SS: Oh! The Ann Lister thing is absolutely unbelievable. The Anne Lister festival is happening again the first week of April and literally, you get two, three, four hundred lesbians arriving from America and Germany and, you know, all over the place. It’s like a convention, an Anne Lister convention. And it’s great for us. I mean, the first year was just incredible, we couldn’t keep the books on the shelves. It’s probably gotten a bit quieter as the years have gone by but still, the Anne Lister effect is definitely a good thing for us.
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JR: Which is just mad, the kind of thing that can bring people into the area.
SS: Yeah, we’ve got an Anne Lister statue in the Piece Hall, so they come and worship that as well, and put flowers on it and stuff. JR: It’s funny what kind of pilgrimages people go on. SS: It’s funny as well because she wasn’t a very nice person, I think, really. JR: Ha! But you’ll need to keep that quiet. SS: I do! I do keep that quiet, yeah. But yeah, she was quite a nasty piece of work from what I can gather. JR: That’s so funny. Sarah, let’s talk a bit more about yourself. Obviously, you’ve given us a little hint at your kind of bookselling backstory, but can you tell us a bit more? You started with an indie - SS: - I did, yeah. Very happy days at Austicks. In fact, I was working at my mother’s corner shop, which was a sandwich shop in Leeds, and Sue Lister - who is an amazing woman, a bookseller all her life - came into my corner shop every day and ordered a quarter of sherbet lemons. She came in and asked me to work with her, which was next door but one. I was seventeen doing my A-levels. It was an academic bookshop, actually. It was a polytechnic bookshop selling academic texts. And I absolutely loved it, stayed there, didn’t go to university or anything, just went and sold books. Twelve years later I was still there when Austicks sold the business. I was then approached by Waterstones to go and work for them. |
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JR: Oh, really? Is that how it happened?
SS: Yeah, because in Austicks, I suppose, I was really young and it was quite an old-fashioned bookshop; you had to wear a skirt, you couldn’t wear trousers, and I was there in my little short skirts and I became a head of a department when I was twenty. I just loved it. I did all the bookstalls with them and went out to the colleges and stuff.
So, I went to Waterstones with the idea of working in their academic departments but then I absolutely fell in love with children’s books and went to work in the children’s section. I then became a deputy manager at Waterstones, and then twelve years later I left there because, well, I had my son. And then, for my sins, I don’t know quite why, but I left Waterstones and got head-hunted by Smiths and had the worst ten years of my life!
JR: Oh, No!
SS: Big mistake.
JR: That’s so funny. I was talking to Bert from Bert’s Books down in Swindon, and he came into indie bookselling from Smiths as well.
SS: Do you know, I feel really sorry for the staff in Smiths because they work so hard, and I mean, it’s not a great place to work. I was very unhappy, put it that way.
JR: Yeah, it feels quite depressing going in there these days.
SS: It is depressing! It’s depressing to be there… Absolutely. Having said that, I worked with some good people and my area managers were always fantastic. In fact, better than some of the area managers I had in Waterstones, that’s for sure.
JR: So, coming from that kind of corporate mainstream world into another indie, did you bring anything with you from your time at Waterstones and Smiths?
SS: I think I struggled, actually, for the first three months. I didn’t really know what I was doing. But then I sort of got back my mojo. I was remembering all the stuff I used to do at Waterstones, I mean, we did the first children’s newsletter ever that was run out to the whole Waterstones group when I worked there. I really started thinking about what I’d done in the past. I remembered doing tables at Waterstones: a New York, New York which took over the whole shop, it was like a long table throughout the shop, and just everything to do with New York. It was massive and we sold so many books.
I didn’t bring anything from Smiths, to be honest, but where I was at Waterstones I was pretty damn on it at the time. I was a good bookseller and I loved it. Then I lost it all in Smiths and I hated it. But I’ve come back and love it again; aged fifty I’ve come back here and I love it!
I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve moved to Halifax now, I used to live in Ilkley, so that’s where I worked with Mike at Waterstones, and Neil at Waterstones, and I used to go and hassle them in The Grove. Then, strangely, I got this job in Halifax, and in November last year, I moved to Halifax from Ilkley. I’m very much a part of Calderdale now.
JR: The more people I talk to booksellers it does seem like the bookselling community is so tight-knit. Everybody does know everybody.
So, your role at The Book Corner, Sarah, is bookshop manager. I suppose that means a lot of different things to different people. What’s your day-to-day like and how do you see the role of a bookshop manager?
SS: My day-to-day? We start with coffee at ten!
JR: Ha! Right, ok…
SS: A lot of our time at the moment is coordinating this festival even though it’s not until October. I’m looking at confirming now so that through the summer we can just focus on selling, basically.
A lot of our time is spent making the shop look wonderful. A lot about display because we’re very carefully curated, as I say. A lot of replenishment, new titles, the usual. Returns! I don’t let any of my allowance go, I go to the penny. It’s just stock management, a lot of it; display, the usual stuff, really. We don’t do much with schools, almost deliberately, to be honest. The Thoughtful Spot had that and we left it to them, that was their thing. We don’t need it and we haven’t got the staff or the inclination, to be honest with you.
We are going to start building our website a bit better. We were really good at it but during lockdown we just let it go. We did everything through bookshop.org which is great. It’s fantastic. But we’re now going to go for signed copies in a big way because we know that we can sell them. We can put those more in our shop. You know, with Simon Armitage, sometimes we have them in the shop and we don’t put them on our website and we could be posting them out. So we’re going to focus a bit more on that and that side of stuff.
We don’t do a subscription service either.
JR: That’s the other big thing that a lot of shops have started taking on, isn’t it?
SS: Did you do it at the bound?
JR: We did a bit. It was so informal, it was more of like, ‘Come in and have a chat with us’, which was just me, really. We could tailor six months to twelve months of their favourites, or hand-picked by me, you know? And I quite liked doing it that way, it was a bit more hands-on and a little more personal. But it’s not something we did across all shops, though there were plans to make something more official and proper.
SS: Yeah, I think it’s something that we haven’t gone into but we might do. Last year was the first year I felt like it’s gone a bit flat. I found December was the first time we didn't hit the previous year’s target. November we had a fantastic time. We were twenty per cent up. But in December it didn’t feel so easy anymore. Even in January and February, the start of this year felt a little flat. So, we’re going to have to put a bit more effort than we have done.
JR: Let’s finish up by talking about books. What’s your go-to thing to read? What do you enjoy the most?
SS: That’s a good question. Short books, probably! This year, Ronan’s has been my top book. I really got into Shirley Jackson. I’d never got into it before. I love, love, love her. More contemporary fiction, you know, I like books in translation. I’ve just been reading Sophie Mackintosh, who isn’t in translation. Some Ginsburg, I’ve been reading. I’m all over the place in my reading, I read non-fiction as well. I read music books. I love my art, I love art books. I think I told you, actually, a while ago, that I bought that [Taschen] Hockney book!
JR: Yes! Very jealous of that.
SS: I’m a bit of a Hockney freak. So yeah, I’m all over.
JR: I love that though. I like reading widely. I’ve just picked up the Andrew McMillan, Pity.
SS: And? What do you think?
JR: So far, really great. I’m less than a quarter of the way in at the minute. But I know that you’re doing an event with him later, aren’t you?
SS: Yeah. Georgie, my colleague, has read it. She liked it. It’ll be a good event with Joelle Taylor as well. It’ll be a great event.
JR: I know you’ve got your regulars. I’m sure you tailor some of your favourites to your regulars. What are your go-to staff picks, if you were put on the spot and you had to pull a book out of your back pocket?
SS: Often, Leonard. Depending, obviously, on who it is. But Leonard [and Hungry Paul], Barbara Kingsolver, Maggie O’Farrell. They’re our go-to but often The Gallows Pole, there’s got to be a bit of Ben. And The Offing. They are our go-to's, absolutely.
JR: And do you find those - obviously Ben and Ronan - but do you find a lot of your staff favourites find their way into your bestsellers?
SS: Absolutely they do. I mean, I don’t know what you sold of Leonard in Forum - I think you got behind it as well, didn’t you?
JR: Yeah, it was a big one for us. Still is. It’s a rare thing. It’s quite universal, isn’t it?
SS: Definitely. We’ve sold well over a hundred, probably nearer two hundred, three hundred copies, I can't remember now. But yeah, and constantly still sells because we still put it into people’s hands. It does wonders. It’s often in our top ten today, which is incredible, really. And when Ghost Mountain comes out I will sell the pants off it. It will definitely be up there. Again, we’re doing preorders on that, which is great for Kevin, as well.
JR: It must be great to have a small press on your doorstep and be able to rely on them.
SS: It’s just great quality fiction coming out from Kevin all the time, isn't it?
JR: Definitely, yeah.
So, Sarah, just to finish us up then, obviously Ghost Mountain is going to be huge. What else are you looking forward to in the next few months?
SS: Well, there’s obviously Ben’s new one. For Georgie, it’s always the Elizabeth Strout [Tell Me Everything, Viking]. And also Naomi Klein’s paperback [Doppleganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Allen Lane].
Right, we’re closing the shop now!
SS: Yeah, because in Austicks, I suppose, I was really young and it was quite an old-fashioned bookshop; you had to wear a skirt, you couldn’t wear trousers, and I was there in my little short skirts and I became a head of a department when I was twenty. I just loved it. I did all the bookstalls with them and went out to the colleges and stuff.
So, I went to Waterstones with the idea of working in their academic departments but then I absolutely fell in love with children’s books and went to work in the children’s section. I then became a deputy manager at Waterstones, and then twelve years later I left there because, well, I had my son. And then, for my sins, I don’t know quite why, but I left Waterstones and got head-hunted by Smiths and had the worst ten years of my life!
JR: Oh, No!
SS: Big mistake.
JR: That’s so funny. I was talking to Bert from Bert’s Books down in Swindon, and he came into indie bookselling from Smiths as well.
SS: Do you know, I feel really sorry for the staff in Smiths because they work so hard, and I mean, it’s not a great place to work. I was very unhappy, put it that way.
JR: Yeah, it feels quite depressing going in there these days.
SS: It is depressing! It’s depressing to be there… Absolutely. Having said that, I worked with some good people and my area managers were always fantastic. In fact, better than some of the area managers I had in Waterstones, that’s for sure.
JR: So, coming from that kind of corporate mainstream world into another indie, did you bring anything with you from your time at Waterstones and Smiths?
SS: I think I struggled, actually, for the first three months. I didn’t really know what I was doing. But then I sort of got back my mojo. I was remembering all the stuff I used to do at Waterstones, I mean, we did the first children’s newsletter ever that was run out to the whole Waterstones group when I worked there. I really started thinking about what I’d done in the past. I remembered doing tables at Waterstones: a New York, New York which took over the whole shop, it was like a long table throughout the shop, and just everything to do with New York. It was massive and we sold so many books.
I didn’t bring anything from Smiths, to be honest, but where I was at Waterstones I was pretty damn on it at the time. I was a good bookseller and I loved it. Then I lost it all in Smiths and I hated it. But I’ve come back and love it again; aged fifty I’ve come back here and I love it!
I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve moved to Halifax now, I used to live in Ilkley, so that’s where I worked with Mike at Waterstones, and Neil at Waterstones, and I used to go and hassle them in The Grove. Then, strangely, I got this job in Halifax, and in November last year, I moved to Halifax from Ilkley. I’m very much a part of Calderdale now.
JR: The more people I talk to booksellers it does seem like the bookselling community is so tight-knit. Everybody does know everybody.
So, your role at The Book Corner, Sarah, is bookshop manager. I suppose that means a lot of different things to different people. What’s your day-to-day like and how do you see the role of a bookshop manager?
SS: My day-to-day? We start with coffee at ten!
JR: Ha! Right, ok…
SS: A lot of our time at the moment is coordinating this festival even though it’s not until October. I’m looking at confirming now so that through the summer we can just focus on selling, basically.
A lot of our time is spent making the shop look wonderful. A lot about display because we’re very carefully curated, as I say. A lot of replenishment, new titles, the usual. Returns! I don’t let any of my allowance go, I go to the penny. It’s just stock management, a lot of it; display, the usual stuff, really. We don’t do much with schools, almost deliberately, to be honest. The Thoughtful Spot had that and we left it to them, that was their thing. We don’t need it and we haven’t got the staff or the inclination, to be honest with you.
We are going to start building our website a bit better. We were really good at it but during lockdown we just let it go. We did everything through bookshop.org which is great. It’s fantastic. But we’re now going to go for signed copies in a big way because we know that we can sell them. We can put those more in our shop. You know, with Simon Armitage, sometimes we have them in the shop and we don’t put them on our website and we could be posting them out. So we’re going to focus a bit more on that and that side of stuff.
We don’t do a subscription service either.
JR: That’s the other big thing that a lot of shops have started taking on, isn’t it?
SS: Did you do it at the bound?
JR: We did a bit. It was so informal, it was more of like, ‘Come in and have a chat with us’, which was just me, really. We could tailor six months to twelve months of their favourites, or hand-picked by me, you know? And I quite liked doing it that way, it was a bit more hands-on and a little more personal. But it’s not something we did across all shops, though there were plans to make something more official and proper.
SS: Yeah, I think it’s something that we haven’t gone into but we might do. Last year was the first year I felt like it’s gone a bit flat. I found December was the first time we didn't hit the previous year’s target. November we had a fantastic time. We were twenty per cent up. But in December it didn’t feel so easy anymore. Even in January and February, the start of this year felt a little flat. So, we’re going to have to put a bit more effort than we have done.
JR: Let’s finish up by talking about books. What’s your go-to thing to read? What do you enjoy the most?
SS: That’s a good question. Short books, probably! This year, Ronan’s has been my top book. I really got into Shirley Jackson. I’d never got into it before. I love, love, love her. More contemporary fiction, you know, I like books in translation. I’ve just been reading Sophie Mackintosh, who isn’t in translation. Some Ginsburg, I’ve been reading. I’m all over the place in my reading, I read non-fiction as well. I read music books. I love my art, I love art books. I think I told you, actually, a while ago, that I bought that [Taschen] Hockney book!
JR: Yes! Very jealous of that.
SS: I’m a bit of a Hockney freak. So yeah, I’m all over.
JR: I love that though. I like reading widely. I’ve just picked up the Andrew McMillan, Pity.
SS: And? What do you think?
JR: So far, really great. I’m less than a quarter of the way in at the minute. But I know that you’re doing an event with him later, aren’t you?
SS: Yeah. Georgie, my colleague, has read it. She liked it. It’ll be a good event with Joelle Taylor as well. It’ll be a great event.
JR: I know you’ve got your regulars. I’m sure you tailor some of your favourites to your regulars. What are your go-to staff picks, if you were put on the spot and you had to pull a book out of your back pocket?
SS: Often, Leonard. Depending, obviously, on who it is. But Leonard [and Hungry Paul], Barbara Kingsolver, Maggie O’Farrell. They’re our go-to but often The Gallows Pole, there’s got to be a bit of Ben. And The Offing. They are our go-to's, absolutely.
JR: And do you find those - obviously Ben and Ronan - but do you find a lot of your staff favourites find their way into your bestsellers?
SS: Absolutely they do. I mean, I don’t know what you sold of Leonard in Forum - I think you got behind it as well, didn’t you?
JR: Yeah, it was a big one for us. Still is. It’s a rare thing. It’s quite universal, isn’t it?
SS: Definitely. We’ve sold well over a hundred, probably nearer two hundred, three hundred copies, I can't remember now. But yeah, and constantly still sells because we still put it into people’s hands. It does wonders. It’s often in our top ten today, which is incredible, really. And when Ghost Mountain comes out I will sell the pants off it. It will definitely be up there. Again, we’re doing preorders on that, which is great for Kevin, as well.
JR: It must be great to have a small press on your doorstep and be able to rely on them.
SS: It’s just great quality fiction coming out from Kevin all the time, isn't it?
JR: Definitely, yeah.
So, Sarah, just to finish us up then, obviously Ghost Mountain is going to be huge. What else are you looking forward to in the next few months?
SS: Well, there’s obviously Ben’s new one. For Georgie, it’s always the Elizabeth Strout [Tell Me Everything, Viking]. And also Naomi Klein’s paperback [Doppleganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Allen Lane].
Right, we’re closing the shop now!
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