Light streaming through the window, creating a patch of sun for the resident cat to nap in, and casting a dappled pattern on the bookshelves. Handsome dads helping their little ones sound out newly learned words. Groups of teenagers clutching their milkshakes and debating the relative merits of dystopian trilogies. And Lexi’s favourite thing of all: customers who aren’t quite sure what they want and trust her with their next read, leaving the shop with arms full of books that perfectly fit their tastes: an unputdownable story of dysfunctional families, an experimental book of poetry, nonfiction to help them better understand the history of their city.
Who wouldn’t want that?
But it turns out that owning a bookshop isn’t just about a love of reading. It isn’t even just about loving people, including in their less pleasant moments. Both of those things, Lexi can do: one of them without any effort whatsoever, the other painstakingly learned through thirty-two years of existing in the world.
But, maths: this, she cannot do.
And it also turns out that owning a bookshop involves a lot of maths.
‘Uh-oh.’ Natalie, Lexi’s events manager, takes one look at her face as she sets down her fresh cup of tea.
Lexi mentally congratulates herself, not for the first time, at having successfully trained an American to make tea the way God intended, with properly boiled water and a splash of milk, using a kettle and not– shudder– a microwave.
‘You okay? You have yourthis-isn’t-adding-upface on.’
Lexi forces a smile. She knows it’s not necessarily professional to air her worries to her colleagues– her employees– but she’s only human, and she needs a sounding board. A decade or so older than Lexi, Natalie was the first person she took on six years ago who wasn’t already working with her grandmother, and she’s been with her through the ups and downs, the excitement of trending on TikTok and the despair of quiet January Mondays with close to zero sales. Lexi knows she can trust Natalie to keep things confidential.
‘I really want to give everyone a pay rise. Goodness knows you all deserve it after everything you’ve all done to keep us open for the last few years. And I know it’s three months away, but I’ve got to think about extra stock for Independent Bookstore Day. Plus the mural needs a fresh lick of paint...’
‘Okay, Lexi,’ Natalie says, shaking her head and swishing her long black hair in her high ponytail. ‘Breathe.’
Lexi obediently inhales the steam from her tea and counts to ten. In the short-lived silence, Natalie tries to change the subject.
‘How was the date last night?’
‘Awful. More of theisn’t it nice to own a bookshop, you must have lots of time to readrubbish.’
Natalie winces on Lexi’s behalf. She knows being patronised is one of her red flags. ‘Ouch.’
‘Yeah. I’m starting to think I should give up on this whole dating thing. It’s exhausting.’ While Natalie is clearly still thinking about how to respond, Lexi returns to her original source of stress.
‘Anyway, we’ve got to find some money to up our marketing. We’re haemorrhaging customers to Sam Dickens.’
For almost thirty years, Lexi’s grandmother’s shop happily coexisted with the bookstore around the corner and its overly curmudgeonly owner, Arthur. Second Reading was a higgledy-piggledy shop crammed with used books shoved into every corner– health and safety seemingly be damned.
But then came 2020, and everyone had to do what they could to survive. Second Reading was sold to the highest bidder, and that highest bidder was Sam Dickens, and Sam Dickens had Ideas.
‘I mean, would it have killed him to pivot to literally any other direction? People who love old books love expensive fountain pens. And jigsaw puzzles. And maps! Sometimes they love artisanal beer, too.’
Natalie nods. ‘Locally crafted, to further support small business.’
‘Exactly. It would have been perfect. But no. It had to be new books.’
Natalie knows this drill. This isn’t the first time she and Lexi have had this conversation. It’s not even the fifth, or the tenth. She recites the next line from Lexi’s usual monologue. ‘It had to be new books, taking up more and more of the shop so that now it looks like the second-hand stuff is just an afterthought, tucked away in a forgotten corner. New books are our brand. Not his brand.’
The thing is, though, Lexi isn’t just incensed as a shop owner. She’s also incensed as a reader, a browser, an engaged member of the community on Capitol Hill. Like so many others in the neighbourhood, she loved Second Reading for a certain kind of experience. For serendipitous finds and the smell of old books. For the slight hit of adrenaline that comes with wondering if a crammed bookshelf is going to collapse onto her head, delivering her the perfect read the way that Isaac Newton’s apple delivered him world-changing inspiration.
In short, for the different vibe.
And, as a bookshop owner, she’d loved that this shop posed no direct threat to hers. In fact, when a customer urgently needed an older book that Pemberley Books didn’t have in stock, she would have no qualms about sending them up the street.
Not anymore.
Now, it’s war.
After Sam bought the shop a couple of years ago, he rebranded it, giving it the slightly pretentious if appropriately punny name of Great Expectations, and slowly edging out the mess and the serendipity, turning it gradually into a shiny corporate shell of a bookstore with lots of space and hard edges, all the personality of a Barnes and Noble meets all the charm of an Apple Store. Lexi isn’t the only one who hates that. There have been protests. Sam doesn’t care, though. He just wants to make money. Capitalism over community, profits over people. Bottom line over books.
At least, Lexi assumes so. Sam had seemed so reasonable when he’d come to introduce himself back when he took over Second Reading. Not overly friendly, but perfectly willing to stick to the unwritten laws of bookselling on the Hill. But as she’s watched him gradually transform the previously beloved institution into something soulless, she’s had to question her previous judgement.
