Thoughts on Book Dealing, "To Read" Stacks, Comics, and Pursuing a Passion

A brief run through of the past thirty days spent dealing, reading, and organising a book fair.

My wife Lorraine and I recently decided to reboot a book fair in our (newly found) home town of Buxton. We attended three fairs late last year and became friendly with the organisers, an elderly chap called Russ and his daughter Jane, who told us they’d decided to hang up their spurs and leave the organisation side to somebody else. The reasons they gave boiled down to money. The venue they’d relied on for years had upped their room hire to a fee that had forced them to raise their own fees for book dealers and charge an admission fee for buyers. The knock-on effect had inevitably resulted in less dealers and less buyers, making it impossible for them to keep the event going. Buxton Book Fair, once a host to over thirty dealers, had dwindled down to around a dozen, and Russ and Jane had been haemorrhaging money just to keep it chugging along. They weren’t bitter, nor did they say a bad word against the venue. They simply shrugged acceptance as we all muttered something about greed ruining everything and put it down to it being a very sad “sign of the times.” They wished us well as book dealers (we have a market stall in Buxton and continue to sell online) and gifted us with banana boxes full of used books because, as Russ pointed out, it was highly unlikely he’d live long enough to shift a stock pile in excess of 30,000. His parting words planted a seed in our minds that quickly took root: “What the book fair needs,” he said “is new blood.”

This was back in December last year. By April this year, we’d secured a small venue on the cheap, distributed a thousand flyers, spread the word on social media, and attracted nine dealers, two local authors, and two small press publishers. The only thing missing was a comic dealer. The two we approached showed little interest, so my wife (often the brains behind the operation, and a person who will gladly go out on a whim while I fret over the amount of money being spent on new stock) suggested we sell comics alongside our usual used books. Frantic online searches and trips across the High Peak followed, resulting in two days bagging and boarding comics, pricing graphic novels, and, of course, trying to read as many as I could before I had to part with them.

Which brings me to the next part of this rambling post.

Personally, I’ve never felt impelled to explore at length the universes of Marvel and DC. Batman, however, has been a big part of my reading life since I read Frank Miller’s Year One, followed it with Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween, Dark Victory and Hush, and peppered the linearity with The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Boland, Ed Brubaker’s The Man Who Laughed, some Ra’s al Ghul stories in Birth of the Demon, and the exceptional Black Mirror by Scott Snyder. Then I tried out Crisis on Infinite Earths, found myself teetering on the edge of a DCU rabbit hole I didn’t really feel like falling down and turned to other series a million miles from Batman like Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga in comics and Donald E. Westlake’s Parker books in prose (I urge anyone reading this to check out both of these series if, like me, you like your comics and/or crime fiction with a razor edge).

So, when we’d gathered together enough comics and graphic novels to set up a respectable stall, I dived back in. On offer were such gems as The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones and The Complete Future Shocks (both of which I’ve read before but saw no reason why I shouldn’t go back for a second taste of Alan Moore at his 2000AD peak), Knightfall, easily the best Batman story I’ve read in a long while, the collected Judge Dredd and Batman stories, a deluxe edition of Scott Snyder’s Swamp Thing run, which started out promising before hitting the same note over and over with pages of fighting and killing off characters, all of which lacked any dramatic impetus because we all know they’ll be rebirthed at some point in the near future. I also read an adaptation of Neil Gaiman stories and poems that further muddled my opinion that the guy is a vastly overrated genius of sorts.

In amongst the hoard were two huge, impressive hardback editions of pure pulp. I love pulp, and here I got both horror and crime in all their glorious lurid comic strip glory. The first, Richard Corben’s Shadows on the Grave is a monochrome homage to the horror comics published by EC and Warren; cautionary tales of greedy relatives getting their comeuppance when they try to grab an unearned inheritance, that kind of thing. Beautifully drawn and coloured in black, white, and greys, and just the ticket when you have a twenty minute window to read a few short, witty stories to take you into the night. Similarly, the collected true and mythologised crime strips by Jim Lowe and Jack Kirby, collected together in a single volume with the no-nonsense title Crime, are like a shot in the arm for anyone fascinated with ages-gone-by tales of outlaws, hoods and gangsters. A Technicolor contrast to Corben’s work, but with the same unwavering aim: to entertain and titillate.

Whenever I buy a haul, I always feel a certain relief that I’m not a book collector. I own collected hardback editions of some of my favourites tales by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Ursula K. LeGuin, and nice big illustrated editions of Tolkien’s two masterworks, plus The Silmarillion, which, admittedly, I’ve yet to read (I imagine The Silmarillion to be like the fantasy equivalent of Joyce’s Ulysses, though I’m probably wrong). I also have certain keepers, such as books that belonged to my parents or those my wife and kids have bought for me over the years. So, when I finish reading, say, the Dredd & Batman stories, I then see them as the investment they were supposed to be instead of a nice addition to my bookcase. Let somebody else read them, keep them, pass them on, or profit from them. It’s all good. Likewise, when I discovered that a box of comics had a signed Mike Mignola print of Hellboy inside, I didn’t hesitate to sell it so I could invest in more books. I’ve no interest in keeping hold of a piece of artwork signed, just as I don’t desire to have a signed copy of Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I own a paperback copy, unsigned, and which I reread about once every two years. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m a book dealer, otherwise I’d be skint with a very impressive collection of first editions.

The problem (if I can call it that) about being a book dealer and an avid reader is that I will never see my reading pile shrink to less than at least two dozen books. Cherry picking certain titles before I put them out for sale has seen my bookcase steadily overspill and books land on top of others that I should have read by now. A case in point: I bought two volumes of J.G. Ballard’s short stories two years ago, placed the collected editions of Chester Himes’ Harlem Cycle on top of them last year, and now both Ballard and Himes are buried under a stack of choice hardboiled crime fiction by the likes of Charles Willeford and Richard Stark that I found in a charity shop last week.

Another case: Whilst distributing flyers for a book fair to the neighbouring towns of Glossop and New Mills, I yet again succumbed to the habit of buying books I fully intend to read before I die. I dropped by High Street Books and Records in New Mills and asked the owner if he’d like to set up a stall at the fair. He reminded me of Dylan Moran’s character Bernard Black from Black Books for two reasons: (a) he had that crumpled, tired-of-telling-people-they-don’t-sell-anything-by-Katie-Price bookseller look, and (b) he was very, very funny. He told me in so many words to fuck off but that he’d be more than happy to stick a leaflet in his window. We then got to talking about how, as booksellers, it’s wise to overcome your snobbery regarding the types of books you sell; I always thought it would be a good idea to only sell books on my market stall that I’d read myself, until my wife pointed out that we weren’t making much money and I needed to cater to a wider demographic than fanboys and literary snobs (i.e. females). He hit me with this: “I’ll sell Mein Kampf because it’s an interesting book written by a c—, but I won’t sell anything by Jeremy Clarkson because they’re uninteresting books written by a c—.” An eloquently put and fair point, I thought. I left with two volumes by Kinky Friedman for myself, and two novels by Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley for one of my most valued customers. He also gave me a stack of Marvel comics at trader’s discount. The Kinky Friedmans are now resting on top of the Kurt Vonnegut I was planning on reading next and the comics are displayed twice a week on my stall.

I love reading books and I love dealing books. I’ve been in the business of dealing now for five years, and, on and off, it’s managed to keep us afloat. Since moving to Buxton last March, however, I’ve noticed a definite shift in gear. A regular customer base has formed around the stall, and I know what certain people like to read and why. There’s the young kid with manners that reflect a decent upbringing who stops by about once a month to buy a few comics before heading off into Manchester to raid Forbidden Planet. There’s the buyer whose intelligence sends his mind fizzing in twenty different directions and takes the more esoteric texts on history, semiotics and language. There’s a guy who genuinely believes he’s an alien hybrid and asks me to order him titles like The Philadelphia Experiment and books on quantum physics and ufology. I have one customer who devours fantasy, horror and science fiction in a seemingly relentless pursuit to read everything that’s ever been written in those genres; he parts with cash like it’s nothing and walks away with stacks of paperbacks and graphic novels twice a week. I introduced him to Ramsey Campbell by lending him my cherished copy of Dark Feasts, and for my efforts he let me borrow a collection of remarkable Clark Ashton Smith stories. Then there are the customers who simply want something new to read, and are more than happy to keep coming back and trusting my recommendations. They’re usually looking for something to take them out of their comfort zones for a brief spell. I’ve recommended George Pelecanos’s early novels to a lady who reads Austen, and uncanny novels to a lady who loves Wodehouse (they were both most pleased with what they read), and I trade a love of classic crime fiction writers with a bloke who swears by Chandler, Elmore Leonard and Lawrence Block.

Yet, it’s not only the customers who are making this job of mine what it is. A kind of literary network has formed around me, and slowly, our trading name, Book Folk, is starting to become more visible. It began in 2018 when we opened a used book and coffee shop called Greenhouse Books in Cheadle, a town situated between Stockport and Manchester. At the time I was studying for a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. The two endeavours went hand-in-hand, and I’d finally found my calling after years of drifting around aimlessly (again, I’ve Lorraine to thank for urging me to go back to full-time study and try my hand at making money doing something I love instead of working a shitty job to pay the bills). With Greenhouse Books, we always wanted it to be more than a second-hand book shop. We invested in a coffee machine and served homemade soup and cake and were proud of the fact that people were happy to sit and chat for as long as they liked. I tried my hand at teaching creative writing classes in the shop after hours, and published a Greenhouse Books journal that included pieces written by those who attended. We also organised a book-to-film club that saw a loyal following come together every fourth Sunday to view a film adaptation after reading the book it was based on. All the selections were made by me, from crowd pleasers like The Shining to graphic novel/animated features like Persepolis, ‘serious’ literature like Revolutionary Road, and a sci-fi double bill featuring Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Incredible Shrinking Man. It was great, and though not everyone enjoyed certain books/films, it was a way of bringing people together and urging them to leave their Jack Reacher or Miss Marple comfort zones at the door and delve into Ken Kesey, Richard Yates, or Jack Finney.

Where am I going with this? Well, we sold the bookshop to a couple called Tim and Janet when we moved to Wales for a brief spell. Janet’s son, Jonathan, now runs the shop, and it’s still going strong. Tim and Janet run Confingo, a small press that publishes Nicholas Royle’s fiction. Nick was my tutor for the final year of my MA, and mentioned to his publishers that my writing wasn’t altogether awful. Tim asked me to send him a couple of stories, and ‘Gawker,’ the darker of the two, was eventually published in Confingo magazine. You can read ‘Gawker’ elsewhere on my Substack, it’s pretty good. Or, even better, check out Nick’s latest short story collections and his translation of Vincent de Swarte’s stunning Pharricide through the Confingo website.

Luckily for us, both Nick and Greenhouse Books answered our call when we asked for book dealers to attend the book fair. Nick set up a stall selling chapbooks published through Nightjar Press, and Janet and Jonathan had a stall selling Congingo publications alongside some choice selections of used books and comics from their shop. Also in attendance was Sue Wilkins, a local children’s author who, along with her partner Ged, essentially put us on the road to establishing ourselves as serious book dealers after they sold us tons of books and bookcases for virtually nothing. Other, old-school book dealers came along who we met last year, everyone rubbed shoulders with each other, and at the end of it all, the day was a huge success. Not since the bookshop have we felt so proud to have been a part of something that we put into motion. Our intention now is to organise a book fair once a month and hopefully see it grow. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I’ll continue reading, writing, exploring genres, avoiding bad literature, and immersing myself in a passion that (I now realise) has stemmed from a father whose trade was as a typesetter and proofreader, and a mother who introduced me to everything that was important on the printed page.

Onward.