Status Updates From A Bookshop of One’s Own

Love this book! Bought it in the UK. True story about a bookstore called Silver Moon that catered to women authors, readers, and publishers. Founded in 1984. Closed in 2001. Oh, how I wish I could have visited Silver Moon!

Alice Walker was beautiful and serene…

…And in that queue was a young Black British writer, Malorie Blackman, who was struggling to get published. It took Blackman about three hours to get to the front of the queue, to the signing table, to meet her hero. In her outstanding auto biography Just Savin' she tells us how their conversation went:

'Please could you write "don't give up" in it for me requested.

All my life, books have been as essential to me as breathing… …Don't you sometimes just stop and marvel at a sentence? How did the writer pick those words, polish them and then put them in the right order? How did they create a sentence so breathtaking, you just want to pick it up and hug it? So, dear writers, for what you say and how vou say it. I am immensely grateful

Not quite as profitable but certainly rather intriguing was a customer in 1998 whose visit was writ ten up in the Bookseller. A gentleman from Saudi Arabia bought five feminist T-shirts. "That', Jane was quoted as saying, is rev lution as far as I'm concerned.' The reporter put question: 'Do you think they were for his wives?' put the obvious.

She very sweetly asked for some recommendations bought all the books we suggested, and her bodyguard paid Like the Queen, Spice Girls don't carry money. Rather at the other end of the spectrum, Judge Stephen Tumin, Chief Inspector of Prisons, was a regular, and we felt useful when people from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees bought lots of books on rape in war during the Bosnian conflict.

“There I met Sue and two things happened: I found feminism and I fell in love. Suddenly, life started to make sense. I fund my cause, and, with love, I found my strength.” 🥺🥺

For someone who doesn't typically read non-fiction, I'm very much enjoying this. Clearly, this book is a letter to literature which is filled with nothing but love and happiness.

Люблю такі співпадіння, коли вранці читаю про нове видання перекладу Beloved Тоні Моррісон, і одразу в книзі події, як авторка презентує цю книгу в магазині та Великобританії загалом

Слухаю аудіокнигу і вже хочу мати паперову з фото дійових осіб, включаючи їхню собаку бордер-колі.

Радію, що читала книгу Helene Hanff "84 Charing Cross Road" і розумію чим надихалися, окрім іншого, засновниці магазину.

Warm, affectionate and flowing writing.