The Acts of Herons – 21/12/2024

Thank you to everyone who has made this a frenetic, not to say rowdy, week. You know who you are. From the person who asked us to recommend a book for ‘a tricky relative’, who has ‘very different taste from mine’ and who… was also standing in the shop. To the person who hovered in the doorway unsure if it was OK to come in with their vegetables (‘this Brussels sprout stalk is so huge it looks like a lethal weapon.’). To the many people communicating with eyebrows alone that a book must be purchased and wrapped without their companion noticing. To the customer who, I think, confessed to assassinating his daughter’s guinea pig… What a week.

To those beginning their shopping on this, the final Saturday before Christmas, we salute you.
To those saving it all for one dash on Christmas Eve, we respect you.
To our fellow shopkeepers, we hold aloft the shop brandy and toast you (regularly, throughout the weekend).

For all of you, a simple drama in four acts:

Act I, the setup:
Three customers stand around a table. On it remains one copy of The Muslim Cowboy by Bruce Omar Yates. The trio look at one another. They look at the book. A moustache twitches. A spur jangles. A thumb tenses, ready to unlock Apple Pay. In the hearts and minds of all watching, Ennio Morricone plays.

The book, they know, is a Western set in Iraq. The main character, “the American”, loves the genre, loves his camel, Hosti, loves his vape, loves his hat, loves to play the hero. The dialogue is sparse and clever, the descriptions simple yet cinematic, the girl is, of course, the true hero, and it’s perfect for someone on each of these customers’ lists. They also want to read it themselves.

Bookmarks await in holsters. Who will draw first?

Act II, (in)action:
The bookseller, who really ought to serve as diplomat/referee in the unfolding spectacle, is to be found resting their voice and enjoying a hot chocolate, on the sound advice of Katherine May, author of Wintering. The bookseller is thinking about May’s research into how other species prepare for winter and appreciating the care May takes never to over-identify with other species while drawing out useful ideas and beautiful images. The bookseller is picturing a fat, snug dormouse in hibernation and smiles.

‘There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into Somewhere Else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now…’ Some people fall through again and again. Everyone does at some stage. How valuable to read acceptance of this without expectation that one must always be summery.

Despite the brilliant passages on the subject, the bookseller will not be going swimming in freezing waters or rolling in snow post-sauna. Reading about it hopefully has similar effect.

Act Three, crises:
Children burst through the door, taking part in a riotous Clifton Village-wide hunt for toy elves. Aunts and uncles rush in: who could have remembered that their book-loving niece has a birthday before Christmas? The bookseller stands on tiptoe to reach for the customer order on the highest pile atop the shelves…

And a gap opens up in the everyday world, as Katherine May warned, but this time a giant falls through…

Copies of The Beanstalk Murder by P.G. Bell are ready for all. The elf-hunters’ powers of deduction will be tested in this murder mystery. Descriptions will be read aloud with delight (‘Eira Sedge was small and round and looked as if she’d been partially knitted.’). The skill of reshaping fairytales into new stories will enchant. The bookseller could use a beanstalk to climb to the tallest stacks…

Act Four, denouement:
Perhaps poetry can offer resolution. Certainly priest, writer and theologian Rachel Mann offers transformation and construction in the considered collection Eleanor Among the Saints. Mann begins by ‘Embroidering a Priest’:
‘In the beginning, hem and line of thread,
A tug, a song of praise, arms raised orans-wise
Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus
Let those with ears hear: Love and love.’

She sews Eleanor Rykener into existence with weird stitches. She quilts an imaginary archive for Eleanor.

This is a superlative book. May your weekend be full of such things,
Lizzie

Festive opening hours:
24 December: 10am-3pm
25 and 26 December: closed
27-30 December: open as usual
31 December: 10am-3pm
1 January: closed
2 January: open as usual

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