Bookshop Customers No.1 (in an occasional series): The Science Fiction Reader

People are very unkind about readers of science fiction and fantasy novels, portraying them as geeky virgins who still live with their parents. As a bookseller who has dealt with thousands of sci-fi fans over the years, I must protest at this crude generalisation. I have met at least seven science fiction readers who didn't conform to this stereotype.

My main issue with the sci-fi/fantasy fans was their relentless questions about forthcoming books. Giving customers information about new titles is part of a bookseller's job, but the fantasy readers nearly always drove me to a state of desperation.

'When's the next book in the Throngard saga coming out?' (We look books up by author and title, not saga and anyway, why are you asking me? Don't tell me you haven't spent ages looking at the author's website)

'Can you phone around your branches to see if they have a signed hardback of Terry Mobble's Planet of Woodlice?' (Of course; I've got nothing else to do)

'Is this any good?' (No of course it isn't, but it's got a map with a 'Western Sea' and some people with silly names and superfluous apostrophes - what more do you want?)

I became very adept at spotting any potential sci-fi/fantasy enquiries and would quickly hide, leaving the less experienced members of staff to learn the hard way. I felt a guilty pleasure at overhearing them say 'Sorry, but how do you spell P'taneth Mhoordu? Is it one word or two?'

Garden Leave

'In the United Kingdom, Garden leave (or gardening leave) describes the practice whereby an employee who is leaving a job (having resigned or otherwise been terminated) is instructed to stay away from work during their notice period, while still remaining on the payroll.' - Wikipedia

What Wikipedia didn't mention was that Garden leave is usually only taken by senior management. Anyone lower down in the pecking order isn't considered worthy of such treatment and the terms of their departure are far less favourable.

I officially left my last job on May 17th 2008, but actually hadn't done a day's work since December 15th 2007. I had decided to award myself Garden leave.

Two years ago my garden looked as if it belonged to someone in an advanced state of psychosis. I remember seeing a documentary about a man who slowly lost his mind and started hording things to the point where he was unable to find a way out of his house. At some point his plumbing broke and he started to defecate in his own garden. I was appalled, but little did I know that my garden would start to look quite similar:

This isn't the garden at its worst. At this point the rats hadn't appeared, but it's pretty awful. I had just had some major building work take place and the garden had been used as a temporary dump. Left unattended for months, the garden quickly deteriorated into a post-apocalyptic landscape, rather like that town next to Chernobyl. It got so bad that I didn't see how I could ever have the time or energy to change things.

Fortunately, my former employer did me a huge favour. They presented me with a wonderful opportunity to take Garden leave; literally. The moment I stopped work, I started digging and began with a Soviet-style scorched earth policy:

I then set myself a budget of no more than £500. Was it possible to transform a garden for so little? I started by going to the local dump, where I was able to requisition paving stones and wood. This was followed by seeds and plants, none of which cost more than £5. Finally, I bought an Asda patio set for £95 and a play house for £130. Here is the finished result:

It won't win any competitions, but it is a big improvement on the radioactive wasteland that preceeded it. I have gone for the 'cottage garden' look (i.e throwing handfuls of seeds on the ground and seeing what happens)


I built the fence myself. I feel like a real man now.

This is a stone I found on a beach when I was 17. It looks more like a sculpture.

It's a small garden and a rather strange one, as it backs onto the upstairs bedroom. Lewes is built on a medieval grid of streets and in the Middle Ages, people tended to have courtyards rather than gardens (he wrote, not really knowing if it was true). But if I need space for my boys to run around, there are two huge fields within five minutes' walking distance, overlooked by Lewes Castle:

It's not the perfect answer. My two sons would be happier living in the countryside, but as urban environments go, I can't think of many places that offer more than Lewes.

I'll never work in an office...

For most of my working life, I have been adamant that I never wanted to work in an office. I worked in one briefly when I was a student and felt like a battery hen. I hated the pointless regulations, the lack of natural light, the obsession with air conditioning and the constant whinging and backbiting. In a moment of desperation, I set fire to a sign that said that the building was completely fireproof.

Bookselling offered an escape. It was like an extension of university and, on the whole, a bullshit-free environment. I really appreciated the fact that there were so many different facets to the job, from the cerebral to the mundane. One minute I'd be talking to John Calder - Samuel Beckett's publisher - the next I'd be boxing-up a return of unsold stock.

People wondered how I managed to survive on such an appalling wage, but I felt that it was a price worth paying for not having somebody mess with your head (man). But then Waterstone's bought Ottakar's and it felt as if the bullshitters had taken over. Books became 'product'. Manangers' meetings started to resemble Communist Party conferences in the Soviet Union, with people clapping nervously at ever banal utterance from the platform.

The same thing was happening in publishing. The days of long, liquid lunches and golf on Friday were long gone, as the accountants moved in. I'm appalled to read that, according to today's news, publishing is the booziest industry in the UK, because today's publishers are a picture of sobriety compared to their predecessors. When I started in bookselling I used to hear tales from the 1960s that made me wonder how any books ever got published.

I left bookselling feeling fairly certain that I'd never work with books again. I was also resigned to the depressing prospect of working in an office. But guess what? I was wrong.

I love working in an office. I like the fact that somebody else is responsible for the minutiae of running a building: the health and safety regulations, the fire and security alarms and the cleaning. I love not having to worry about whether the staff are happy and motivated and it's absolute bliss not having to deal with the public. I don't even have to worry about the authors, because they're all dead. Fantastic!

It's just me and the books.

The Lady Policeman

Yes this is lazy blogging and yes, I should be reading a book instead of wasting my time on YouTube, but I liked this pastiche of 1970s cop dramas, particularly the title sequence: