Any bookseller will tell you that, even with 100,000 booksneatly sorted and shelved in a well-lit, warm shop, if you put an unopened box of books in a dark, cold, dimly lit corner, customers will be riffling through it in a matter of moments. The appeal of a box of unsorted, unpriced stock is extroidinary.

...people still cling to the notion that first editions are somehow imbued with a magical and financial value.

Awomen spent ten minutes looking around the shop, then told me that she was a retired librarian. I suspect she thought this was some kind of a bond between us. Not so. On the whole, booksellers dislike librarians.

When the old man in the crumpled suit came to the counter to pay for the copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, I discreetly pointed out that his fly was open. He glanced down - as if for confirmation of this - then looked back at me and said, 'A dead bird can't fall out of it's nest', and left the shop fly still agape.

A less than friendly email this morning... [from a booksop customer]After lunch I went to my parents' house to get my shotgun and shoot a kindle (broken screen, bought on eBay for £10)