It’s our birthday, and you’re invited!
Backstory is turning 1 this coming Saturday — 30th September. Join us from 10am to celebrate with birthday cupcakes made by our friends at The Clink, the charity helping prisoners gain NVQs in catering at Brixton prison.
Celebrate with our magazine
A reminder that you can now pre-order the first issue of our very own magazine, which launches next weekend to mark our anniversary. Some of our favourite authors have written for it, from Alice Winn to Cal Flyn. There’s insight, provocation — and plenty of humour. Order now for a mere £2.95, with free postage anywhere in the UK.
Coming up at Backstory
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Free live music every Thursday evening, 6pm-8pm. This week: Ann Liu Cannon
No need to book, just turn up at our bar from 6pm on Thursday evenings
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Ella Risbridger and Kate Young — The Dinner Table: 100 Writers on Food
Wednesday 11th October, 7.30pm
We’re so lucky to host these two dazzling writers for an exclusive launch event for their new anthology of food writing, from Nigella Lawson to Salman Rushdie.
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Kids signing: Katie Kirby — The Completely Chaotic Christmas of Lottie Brooks
Thursday 12th October, 4pm
Meet bestselling children’s author Katie Kirby at our in-store signing of her new and hilarious festive themed book
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Kenny Imafidon in conversation with Stephen Bush — That Peckham Boy
Wednesday 18th October, 7.30pm
That Peckham Boy is an extraordinary book about what it means to be young, black and poor in London, by Kenny Imafidon who was wrongly accused of the murder of a 17-year-old boy. He’ll be talking to FT columnist Stephen Bush.
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Backstory presents: words & music with The Listening Project
Saturday 21st October, 7.30pm
A ticketed music night with The Listening Project, who will be celebrating contemporary classical music with an oratory focus. Featuring the works of composers such as Hilary Kleinig, Ted Hearne, Anna Disley-Simpson, John Lely and more. Join us for a night of sounds and soliloquy at the bookshop where art, music and ideas come together.
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Prisons, inside and out, with Chris Atkins and Alex South
Wednesday 1st November, 7.30pm
Join us to discuss life inside — and after — prison with Chris Atkins, whose book ‘Time After Time’ tracks the fortunes of a dozen repeat offenders to understand why recidivism remains stubbornly high, and Alex South, who recounts her experiences of life as a female prison officer in ‘Behind These Doors’.
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Coming up at the Non-Fiction Book Club: Philippe Sands (The Last Colony), Caroline Knowles (Serious Money: Walking Plutocratic London), Christina Lamb (Our Bodies, Their Battlefield)
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Coming up at the Fiction Book Club: Rebecca Wait (I’m Sorry You Feel That Way), Bobby Palmer (Isaac And The Egg)
Our book of the month
Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson is a fantastic writer. This rule applies to her newest book as much as ever. Through 11 interconnected stories, Atkinson mixes delightfully real, everyday characters with a light fairytale touch. A talking horse gives betting tips, a magic Queen grants (conditional) wishes, and someone watches their own autopsy.
Each story and character is so vivid, Atkinson could give us a novel on each one. A perfect book for weekend reading.
THE THING WITH opening hours is people always know where you are. Journalists can be “on the road” when it suits them, or lurk behind out-of-office emails; politicians have caseworkers; even dentists have receptionists and waiting lists. But you only have to stick Backstory into Google Maps to have a pretty good idea of where I’ll be and, most of the time at least, when. Which means, even if I’m ensconced in my office downstairs trudging through a spreadsheet or paying another invoice, it’s usually not long before one of the team shouts down, “Tom, there’s someone for you.”
These past few months I’ve learned, fast, to interpret tone. Those same five words can be a promise or a threat, presaging an encounter best dodged or, ahem, a treat in store. Too often, at least in the early months, they meant unscheduled visits from sales reps, hawkers of all kinds, the offer to display posters for the circus, or local authors wondering if we could stock a book that hasn’t been in print for three decades.
My job in these circumstances was to come upstairs to offer a swift, and ideally polite, No. This is happening less and less: partly because some of these callers have moved on to another, more receptive target; partly because my very nice team has now learned to be just a tiny bit less nice some of the time, delivering the bad news themselves. (Amy proudly relayed her list of recent “Nos” to me the other day: I’ve created a monster.)
These days, then, those words make me smile. Sometimes it’s friends, dropping in unannounced. I was readying for a solo evening manning the bar a few weeks ago when my friends Ali and Megan, who don’t even live in London, wandered in and pulled up some stools. I might have processed fewer book returns than planned, but the owner needs to sample the quality of the Chin Chin from time to time. In the hectic first few weeks of trading, frequent random drop-ins by my friend Hannah were good for morale but also for a grumbling stomach: she’d often be sent out about 3pm to get me an emergency sandwich.
Other times it’s the team, who seem incapable of staying away on their days off. They drop in to introduce visiting family members or sometimes just to sit in a nook and read. (Backstory began to resemble a front room during lengthy recent visits by my Australian and American colleagues’ relatives, one of whom was treated to their own copy of one of our regular’s poems. This was warm and cosy and very sweet, and I can’t imagine it happens if you work in a funeral parlour.)
Often, it’s old friends or colleagues I haven’t seen for yonks. People who I’d probably be too forgetful, awkward and/or British to email out of the blue and suggest a catch-up drink, but for whom owning a shop provides the perfect opportunity to casually drop in and say hello, with the convenient alibi of shopping for books. It’s a bit like Facebook used to be, only in real life and without the opportunity to click “Maybe”. It’s a joy.
The other day, bleary-eyed and opening up the shop, I was focused on moving a bag of dog poo someone had left outside the door when I realised I recognised the woman with a pram staring insistently at our opening hours. Helena! My old uni friend, and one of my first ever bosses, who insisted I needn’t worry about things like exams when I could work for her on the student paper. It was so nice to see her again, and I happily sold her a copy of The Runaway Pea. A classic.
Last Christmas, a high-up editor from The Economist came from one end of the northern line to the other, ostensibly as just another customer browsing for Christmas gifts (he bought several) but very obviously to show his support for my new venture. It was very lovely and much appreciated. Another time, an ex-colleague had a drink or two at the bar and wondered aloud, “perhaps I could do this in Mexico”. Backstory with tacos? Why not? I’ve enjoyed these moments of squaring my old life with my new (and of catching up with the gossip, of course).
Two of the biggest and loveliest surprises were impromptu visits from teachers at my secondary school in Newcastle. History was my favourite subject and Mr Edwards my favourite teacher. It was fun to be able to point him towards the entire bookcase that I’ve dedicated to history (despite the team’s grumbles about its original country-by-country and chronological order). As for Ms Shepherd (English, year 9), she seemed amusingly sheepish to show me the pile of books she’d picked out when she came to the counter. Which reminded me of nothing so much as handing over my hastily-written English essays.
Of course, these visits can sometimes be an obstacle to, you know, getting anything done. Big tasks, like accounts and ordering in new books, are best done at home. But who cares? They enliven the day and provide a welcome unpredictability.
So who will next week bring? Anyone’s welcome, even — horror of horrors — my old P.E. teacher. There’s not space to do a forward roll with all those book tables, anyway.
Tom