What’s your dream job?

I can’t quite believe that I am writing this but right now my dream job would be to work in a bookshop.

I would only hang my working hat in a quirky bookshop that served excellent coffee.

My life in bookshops started in the small market town where I grew up. Hannay in the High Street sold books and had a smell like no other. The smell of other worlds and experiences, the smell of adventure.

By the time I was 10 my bookshop tastes were expanded exponentially, my dad often worked in Cambridge and Dad Day Care involved him leaving me in a bookshop for hours. He knew I would never leave or get into trouble.

By 18 I was living in London and had discovered Foyles.

Remembering the real old Foyles

At the same age I discovered Hay-on-Wye and streets filled with second -hand book shops. In my fantasy book life I frequented Shakespeare and Co in Paris, more than a bookshop. I was taken there by Hemingway and F. Scott-Fitzgerald. In my dreams!

Daunts Books in Marylebone High Street is my favourite book shop building and probably the one I know best.

https://dauntbooks.co.uk/

So many hours spent in there whilst I was on-call at the Heart Hospital. My friends and family got really well researched book gifts while I worked near there.

But it was a bookshop in the middle of nowhere that ignited my love of bookshops with a side serving of coffee and quirk.

http://robbersroostbooks.com/

Robbers Roost in Torrey, Utah brought my fantasy book shop to life. A shop that was so much more. Named because the building stands close to a hiding place of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. The bookshop was built as a home in 1976 and is also the home of the Entrada Institute.

https://www.entradainstitute.org

Unknown at the time we had chanced on this bookstore soon after it had opened. We were only in Torrey for three days but I visited the bookstore every day and it has forever fueled my imagination of the perfect place to sell books and build a community hub. I would love to work in such a place. The commute is the only thing that stops me.

P.s not all my bookshop hunts have been as life affirming as those mentioned.

We were visiting Athens in October 2016 and had popped into an independent book shop.We bought some gifts. Hours later the book shop was bombed. The one occasion when my dad was wrong. Bookshops are not always safe.