I opened a bookshop. It was the best, worst thing I’ve ever done:
January 2025
Slate-grey skies and relentless rural gloom. The Wiltshire idyll that my husband and I moved our young family to 15 years ago entirely loses its charm at this time of year. I long for London. For high heels on pavements. For culture around every corner. I head to the butcher in Tisbury, a picturesque, largely independent high street between Shaftesbury and Salisbury, to buy something cheering for dinner. And that is when I see it: the three arched windows of the shop opposite, formerly a gift shop full of cotton nightdresses and the type of wooden toys no child ever wants to play with, a “For Sale” sign hanging outside.February
“A bookshop?” says the solicitor we have instructed with the conveyancing of the purchase. “Lovely, romantic idea. You’ll go under in a year.”
I read The Bookshop in 2021 and saw the film in June.
My beautiful wife’s barometer and comfort level with the idea of opening or acquiring a book store waxes and wanes. Given our current fiscal situation, it’s definitely not in a gibbous state.
