Meet Tom Ayling: on Living a Literary Life + the Rare Bookselling World
This week’s creator interview is with Tom Ayling, a rare and antiquarian bookseller based in the UK, working for Jonkers Rare Books. And don’t tell his friends, but he’s also a prolific storyteller on Booktok, sharing incredible stories and the provenance of some of the world’s most beloved and one-of-a-kind books. Explore the world of rare books and how you might start your own book collection. Plus, why do first editions with dust jackets make them so special?
Read the transcript of the interview below:
Tom 00:02
he sort of said, Hey, are you sure we can't persuade you to live a literary life?
Ashley 00:09
Everyone we are back and this week I've got Tom ailing the antiquarian bookseller with me here today. Tom, I want to start off by asking your origin story. So how did Tom antiquarian bookseller come to be? And how did that differ from like what Tom the kid thought he was going to be when he grew up.
Tom 00:29
It goes, well, I got into it selling University went to University in St. Andrews up in Scotland, which is beautiful, beautiful town. And they had an amazing independent bookshop, called topping and company, who are quite well known for having beautiful book shops in, in various parts of the UK now. So I started that sitting there, one summer, kept going all through my fourth year, and then fell in love with book selling, and was very, very tempted to stay with them and do that. After I, after I graduated, that I was sort of toying up and weighing up in my mind whether I was going to do that, or pursue a career in academia, in new down to London. So I decided on the latter. And it's quite funny when I when I broke the news to Robert topping who with his wife, Louise, founded and run the business, he sort of said, Hey, are you sure we can't persuade you to live a literary life in in that kind of casual offhand way that that he does that is incredibly convincing. And, and as soon as he said that, I thought I've made the wrong decision. And after, you know, after a couple of months, in London, sort of trying to get started in, in academia with further study, and so on, I thought it just it just wasn't for me. And I missed bookselling that I decided that rather than go back into selling new books, which is what I'd done previously, and loved, I thought I'd go on a different path. And then to the antiquarian book trade, which I'd had some exposure to, through sort of handling rare books in Special Collections, you know, looking at stuff I was researching. And I've collected books for years, you know, rare and antiquarian books, first editions, manuscripts, that sort of thing. So, it was something I had had an interest for, and decided that I was, I was going to move into into that sort of sphere in the bookselling world which is more transferable than that then you might think the materials is very different but the basics of getting people excited about books and telling stories about books the same and being in lovely surroundings, you know, working with the sea. Yes. Gosh knows what, seven year old Tom in his short shorts and skullcap would think of that but gotta he'd probably still be disappointed. I wasn't, you know, be a professional footballer or cricketer or
Ashley 03:04
do you get back up to St Andrews?
Tom 03:07
Yes, I I try to go as often as I can. Which is about once every 18 months I was up there last on a COVID happening and not being able to travel abroad has been great in that regard because we get to explore the beautiful parts for UK that we did get the chance to. So I've been a couple of times since COVID that I'm getting again this September. So So yes, when whenever I can try to drag myself north of the border I I do St. Andrews I'm in love with it as a place my when I started collecting books. I started by collecting books about St. Andrews, about the history of St. Andrews, the town, the university, the Gulf, you know, we all have it. It's a place I do. And I'd love to be back there one day, but that might be a retirement plan.
Ashley 04:01
Yeah, yeah. It is beautiful. I've actually been, I wanna Yeah. Which is crazy. It's such a small world. But yeah, I in a past life, I worked for a startup. And they asked me to come speak at St. Andrews for their entrepreneurship week. So so I got to go and give a lecture. And it was it's so beautiful. I think I had like one day to wander. And so I just, like walked all the way around and it was so beautiful. Luckily, like wasn't raining. And I remember I went to the botanical gardens that were so lovely. And it's just off yeah, it was it's a pretty magical place.
Tom 04:41
Yes, it's especially when there's something about small towns or or you know, small cities, things that used to be cities, but there's now towns that still have their, their old core and anti built up around them. And the way it sort of perches on the edge of the rocks. You know, you feel you know, there's one road in one road out. You feel like you're, you're at the edge of the world did some? Yes. Lovely. You're making me want to drive up there this weekend.
Ashley 05:10
I know. Well the funny thing is too, I've been to a topping and company in Edinburgh, I went to the giant one that's in the bank. And I spent, I spent hours there. And I was with a friend that she left she was like, I'm gonna go because I had spent way too much time perusing, I guess. But I was like, I'm not ready to leave yet. So yeah, it's great.
Tom 05:34
That's the idea that proper old fashioned bookshops they have an extraordinary amount of books crammed in there, you and that's, that's really what was what was unique about having St. Andrews is a smaller shop that had some great Edinburgh is the most recent location. But you know, you can go in there and ask for any book on any subject and it will be more impressive, you can ask for any book on any subject and the bookseller will be able to tell you without even looking
Ashley 06:08
It's like a lost art. That's why I think that's why I think people connect so much with with I think your content and other booksellers on Booktok because you do know all the stories in the history and I think there's there's a bit of that nostalgia or, or want of things lost or things gone
Tom 06:28
with, we're better than the Amazon algorithm and finding out what you want.
Ashley 06:35
I love that what got you into reading originally, like, Have you always been a big reader even as a child or like any authors from your childhood that you feel like stuck out to you?
Tom 06:46
My, my parents really encouraged us. I'm the middle child, I have two brothers really encouraged us to read. So it was, you know, very much kind of mandatory reading every day before that, you know, half half an hour an hour, both myself and my brothers were all big readers, totally different readers, you know, with Oh interests, different interests, and then yeah, very not not too much overlap. There need that. As a result, you know, we all became, you know, independent lovers of reading for pleasure, which I think is that the key, you know, you start out having to eat before bed, and then you find yourself, you know, not having a light out or starting Aurelion or something, you know, when you when you get into it, I read a lot of historical fiction, when I was when I was young. I love kind of, you know, our theory and tales. You know, I found he even then that, you know, I would use the read the stories and think I was born in the wrong age. They were probably the big things initially. And then I grew into reading things like that Lemony Snicket books, I remember devouring, so those initially and then and then I suppose as you as I grew as a reader, sort of through what you're introduced to at school, so you start you're introduced to kind of the set texts of the British education system. You know, mandatory Shakespeare and romantic poets and your modern novels, you know, Lord of the fives. And, you know, taking that as a jumping off point for exploring new writers new new genres.
Ashley 08:26
Wait. So I have to ask because I feel like no one in the states seems I grew up reading Susan Cooper. Like, I was obsessed. I don't know if you ever read any time I have a dark a Dark Is Rising sequence. It's she's a she's a British author. And I think the books came out. They're old between the 70s and 90s, something like that. Yeah. And I love them so much. And it's there's five books in the series. But yeah, and they're probably I think I read them in like middle school. So they're very, you know, for young kids. But yeah, they're they're definitely one that that always sticks out.
Tom 09:03
I'll have to check them out and go on a trip.
Ashley 09:07
I know when I when you said I 30. And I'm like, Oh, I wonder if he's read these. But
Tom 09:10
yeah, I mean, I guess that that was that was the other thing that that really hooked me on on reading was that we had we had a great local library, why very important to really good independent bookshop with sort of knowledgeable booksellers. And at both the schools I went to, extremely good school librarians who would, you know, arrange events for authors to come and talk I remember, Caroline Lawrence, who wrote the Roman mysteries novels, which are a great series of novels for children certain set in ancient Rome came came to our primary school to talk about them. And then, interestingly, on the sort of book collecting point, yeah, she then she then signed my copy, which I thought was was like, like, but then she turned to a page in the book and corrected a typo. That only appears in the in the first edition. And like, it just came back to me them that that, that that happened and I was like God that was the first like bibliographic point I found when I was like, you know, six years old talking to this author.
Ashley 10:24
When did you decide to join Booktok? Like what made you want to create an account?
Tom 10:31
I had a tick tock account before I started making videos. And it was actually I created it for the randomest reason we were doing one of these I mean, like, first lockdown in the UK. Quick family quizzes were a big thing. And then if you had this, that like, Oh, thanks. So we would like jump on Zoom. And like you do like a quiz, right? Okay. After a few weeks of this, everyone ran out of questions to do family quizzes, because like, obviously, say, then, a cousin of mine had like one of the rounds in the family quiz, we have to like, do a Tiktok dance. And this video will never be posted. Like this is like...
Ashley 11:14
we don't get a sneak peek of this one? haha
Tom 11:17
At the bottom of my drafts. forever. But that yeah, so that's how I sort of got got on the app. And then at the same time, obviously, our bookshop was closed. Most days, I was still able to go into work, because I I'd be packing up orders taking deliveries, you know, that sort of thing. But it was just me that so I didn't come into contact with, with anyone else. Customers, you know, were began asking something they'd never asked before from videos of books, because, you know, they couldn't come to the shop and see us we couldn't travel to their homes to see them and show them things which, you know, pretty standard part of, of what we do. So I started filming little videos, and then I, I, you know, I had this tick tock account that, frankly, was, as far as I concerned was like a burner account, I, they were really bad videos, for one thing, they weren't like, done properly or anything. So it was just playing around with playing around with that. And it was really fun, you know, engaging with with people in this way. And you know, for a long time, you know, 10 people would watch a video than 15 people would watch a video for like, the first few months. Yeah, and then. And then I had a, you know, a couple of did a video of a few cool books and they got more views. And I decided, you know, it'd be a bit more consistent about posting, creating good quality video content about Rare Books was something that I've been wanting to do for a while, because it wasn't out there. There was for a long time been really, really good content about new books, you know, book cheese and big talk after it. Yeah, sort of too confident. Weird, weird way,
Ashley 13:08
In a great way. That's so this is one of the follow up questions is like, what was that moment where you're like, oh, my gosh, what have I done? Like, did you have a moment where you woke up and you were like, blasted with notifications?
Tom 13:21
I am. I was the drunkest I've been in in maybe 10 years. When when the first video like when Crazy, right, okay, which which was which was not good. I was I was at a at a dinner in London with some some friends I hadn't seen in a in a long time. Yeah. And I remember checking my phone like in a cab, like half asleep. And just like unit I'd never seen my thing like it before you like just an advocate of just going crazy. And, and yet, and I wake up the next morning, probably still drunk and got on a train to get home. And yeah, just all these comments are just like replying to comments like, just as a means of like staying away from the train. So I didn't miss my stop. And wow, after after that happened, I sort of told myself, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and post every day if I can, you know, and just try to keep keep putting stuff out there. So that first video was for the first edition of Pride and Prejudice. I got to work the next day, about five hours late and made it made the video the first edition of Jane Eyre that went quite well and then yeah, just just went from that.
Ashley 14:47
How long does it take you to create one of your videos because I feel like you put so much thought into the the history and all of the storytelling elements that you that goes into one of your posts. So do you have a pro process for creating now,
Tom 15:01
for most of the content that I'm making that is directly if it's a video like about something that we have in the shop, that's the kind of say, what what I'm trying to do there and sort of tell tell an interesting story that does the book or the manuscript or the piece of art or whatever it is. Justice. So a minute video might take him a couple hours, and if it's yeah, you know, four or five minute video, it might, it might take him a three or four hours, which, which is crazy, then it might flop,
Ashley 15:40
enjoying this interview, make sure you subscribe. Or it's tell us about the shop. Like how to what is the story of the shop.
Tom 15:48
Jonkers Rare Books is the bookshop that I that I work at. They've been in. In Henley on Thames, which is a beautiful market town in Oxfordshire for about 20-25 years. We specialize in in Rare Books and Manuscripts relating to English literature, in particular, in its broadest sense, so covering children's books, books for adults. And that span really takes you from Chaucer to Harry Potter and everything in between. But But I would say we have a kind of sweet spot that takes you from, you know, Jane Austen until the until the Second World War, that that period is where most of our most of our products come from. And what we try to offer is the the best and most superlative examples of of their time. So if we've got like a first edition of Jane Austen, we don't just want a first edition of right Pride and Prejudice, we want a beautiful copy in a contemporary binding with an interesting story or provenance behind it. And enough of those additional factors that that take the book to the, to the next level. About 10 years ago, we had the only name authorial presentation copy of a Jane Austen novel, it was a presentation copy of languages we bought is quite a good example. So it was a first edition of a novel called kips by HG Wells, which is a romance novel that not many people have heard of, because it's not science fiction, which is right what he was his better name for a but it was the copy of Kipps that he inscribed for Henry James. And it says on the on the half title page, it's written in HG Wells is he's got this lovely minute and precise handwriting. And it says, For Henry James, who didn't send me a copy of the Golden Bowl, he was the golden bowl. So this is a fire the Golden Bowl is to know that. Yeah, 1904. So it's, it's notation, it's got a snarky inscription, To the greatest writers of their of their generation. And that's the sort of sort of book that that gets me excited. And the big, the big part of what we do is sort of help people build really special collections. So you know, working with people over over a long period of time advising them on what they add to their collection, helping them disperse with it, if that's something they want to do, people people have in their mind, I suppose, the the archetypal, right collect book collector, you know, and, and he's, he's probably wearing a tweed jacket. But the wonderful thing is that they're, you know, bill collectors come from, from, you know, all sorts of all sorts of backgrounds. And part of the reason for that is that you can collect books on literally any subject in the world, because anything that you're interested in will have a printed history. In fact, the reason that you're interested in it is because it has a printed history, and therefore it's a thing that people can talk about and learn about and get excited about. So we have people from all backgrounds in you know, in the shop,
Ashley 19:09
I think it's incredible because I think you're right, like there's a lot of us and I think especially during the pandemic, a lot of people rediscover their love of reading, it seems like just with the emergence of booktalk and, and just seeing like how quickly even like backlist books are now at the top of these bestseller lists again, and so wonderful to see people loving reading, you know, and they're not just like yes, we're all glued to our phones and technology but still loving the written word. I wanted to know if you had thoughts on like, why so few older books don't have dust jackets like is it because they were seen as like packaging and just tossed or were they actually did they disintegrate because they're so old or did they just kind of fall apart?
Tom 19:57
The history of the dust jacket is yeah Very interesting one, and it can be a very boring one. So there is like trust, okay, there is a three hour version of this, okay? Okay. But dust jackets began to be issued in books in the in the second half of the 19th century. So they're much much older than then people tend to give them credit for Yeah, we've I've handled books from the sort of 1860s and 1870s with dust jackets. And initially, they are kind of packaging material, they'd be very plain, very rarely decorative, often just the printed title on spine, may maybe the price, but nothing on the on the panels of the dust jacket. Okay. And then as you move through the the 1890s, into the into the 1900s, they're still very clean, you get a few that are a bit more decorative. If the front cover of the book has it has a design on it, we might get a design replicating that on on the dust jacket. And basically, from the 1880s, he knows almost every book printed pretty much is going to have had a dust jacket. And the reason they don't survive is is many fold, I mean, very few original bindings from the 1880s and 1890s survive, let alone that little bits of paper wrapped around, they are ephemeral objects, essentially. And they were treated that way. Once someone had bought the book, it wasn't necessarily considered that the dust jacket had a had a world planning. So certainly some people threw them away when they got them home, some booksellers threw them away when they received them the best shop. And, and the rest of it is an awful lot of wear and tear, you know, 100 years is a long time for them to survive. In undamaged, especially, especially its you know, outer layer of protection, which is this this thin piece of paper. So that's why it's safe you survive. Because if you survive these early dustwrapper is a very, very valuable bits of paper. And the sort of survival of a rare dustwrapper will increase the books value many, many times. And the classic example everyone reaches for as you know, a first edition of The Great Gatsby, without a dustwrapper is not a terribly Rare Book, if you wanted to five copies of it and add a credit card with a high enough limit. Yeah, I could, I could do that in an afternoon. And it would cost about 5000, maybe seven and a half $1,000 a pop, you know, the copy in the dustwrapper would cost you quarter million dollars up if it was in in nice condition. So yeah, it makes a big difference. So I mean, that is sort of a freak example in the fact that it's a it's a it's an iconic dustwrapper That was written into the plot of the novel. Just because you know, Scott Fitzgerald saw this design and was like, don't give that to anyone else. I'm gonna put it in the book. But a bit yeah, there's the sort of early dustwrapper is a really lovely things to see. Because, you know, you don't see 19th century dust wrappers very often but, you know, Oscar Wilde's books, industrial papers, you know, we've had a picture of the door, the first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and a dustwrapper, which are beautifully, very Wildean design, very pared back. Um, it just says The Picture of Dorian Gray, and then these little guilt ambulance on the carpets. I could I could go on for days about
Ashley 23:31
I love that. No, but I think that's that's the fun part is like understanding the history and like why and you tend to I mean, a lot of your books I assume you acquire by private auction most of the time, right? Or do you like what are some other ways that you guys end up acquiring books?
Tom 23:46
As a business, we we acquire books, by any means necessary?
Ashley 23:54
That sounds very ominous.
Tom 23:55
Yeah, yeah. Well, which is to say, you know, any and all means we I probably in terms of the split of my time 80 to 90% of my time is looking for books. Oh, wow. It's probably an 8020 9010 split on the buying side with we're very particular about what we buy and the quality of books that we buy. And part of that is the service that we provide our customers, you know, we we sort through all the all the chaff, you know, trying to get to get the wheat and only offer the best quality and you know, without guarantee and so on. So, we probably over the course of a year look at five to 10,000 books for every one book that we buy. Oh
Ashley 24:43
my gosh.
Tom 24:44
Wow. Yeah. Which which is you Yeah, but the means that they come to us, in broad terms, privately, which is to say, people who own the books either because As they've bought them, or inherited them, or come to us directly as specialists and into upsell to us, we go to book fairs all over the UK, and all over the world is a public book fairs that anyone can go to. But we buy books there, as well as sell books that think we buy books at public auction at places like Saturdays and Christie's and today at pfdj, and Paris, but also provincially, you know, scaring small auctions all over the country, all over Europe, all over America, or to you know, try and find try and find good books and you have to, you know, it's, it's not an easy thing. They're rare that we call them rare books for a reason that's hard to find. So we, we cast on it very wide. And they're very particular about, you know, what we, what we throw back into the ocean and what we keep?
Ashley 25:54
Do you have a favorite, this is so hard. It's like picking a favorite child, right? But do you have a favorite or I guess, most unique copy that you've ever sold?
Tom 26:05
I mean, lots of this is the answer. I very fond of everything that we deal with my favorite things ever. There's, there's there's two items, that that stand out to me that that I'm particularly fond of. And they are in in 1907, and a Shackleton led his first exhibition to the Antarctic. And Shackleton is is now known as a great leader of men and a great motivator. And part of the reason for that is he understood that the human psyche, and part of the problem with going to the Antarctic is that you have a very long winter, when there's no sunlight. So what do you do when you have, you know, a crew of men to keep keep motivated, and he decided that they would make a book. So they brought the printing press to the Antarctic, crew members had a few days training in London on how to produce. Yeah, and they took a printing press on a ship, all the way to the Antarctic with the sole reason, or the sole purpose that they could print a book when they got and the book they produced was filled with illustrations, stories, poems, little sketches satires, and it was called the Aurora Australis. And it has a beautiful frontispiece. Of of him Aurora. And they they bound the book in the cardboard pat on the on the on in the packing crates that they took down with them, using horse reins for the leather spines. And it is genuinely one of the most beautiful books of the period. It's set against what what you have in the early 20th century in Britain in something called the private press movement, which produced in small numbers, very beautiful handmade books, letterpress printing, hand binding, often hand illumination. And considering that they made it in conditions where ink would freeze, if you can keep a candle under it the whole time. It's it's quite extraordinary that they, they produced it. So that was, that was a fun thing to have and to sell. And a corollary book to that is that they had a midwinter feast on these Antarctic expeditions, mid mid winter's day was was very important. It's sort of an important festival, but still celebrated by, you know, down at the station at the South Pole today, okay. And for the occasion, they again, printed by hand on their printing press menu for the midwinters feast. And, and they bound it in in paper wrappers. And because it's a sort of very affine ephemeral thing, you know, it's just a menu is extraordinarily rare. And we had the cooks own copy of the of the menu. So those are the two products of Shackleton's printing press in the Antarctic. And, and yeah, they sold days in 2019, and they're both in the same same collection now. So after, you know, 110 years separated from each other, you know, those two items printed by the same presser sat together again.
Ashley 29:25
Wow. So what advice would you give to people if they were just wanting to kind of get into collecting rare antiquarian books? Like where where do you start,
Tom 29:36
find what you're interested do tell as many people as possible that you're interested in. And, and that's it, that's a pretty good start. Book Collection is a very personal thing. So So my advice would be connect what you're, what you're passionate about and what actually gets you excited. I genuinely think everyone has something that that fits those These two things, you know, let's say for example, that that, you know, let's say it's Jane Austen, that you say the thing that gets me more excited than anything in the world is a Jane Austen novels. That's great. That's a wonderful enable thing to, to be excited by the great books, and they have a great history is objects. Now, unless you're very, very wealthy, or very, very lucky, you're not going to you're not you're not going to come across a first edition of Jane Austen in your, in your local secondhand bookshop for five pounds or so you think, Okay, well, without abandoning Jane Austen, what, what could I buy? That's really interesting. And one of the things you could do in that case is you could, you could collect editions of Pride and Prejudice, not from the 19th century, but through the 20th century, then you can chart how that novel has been, you know, both published and received, over 100 year period, probably without spending more than five or 10 pounds on a single single item. And there are many, many books in the world that aren't that interesting on their own, that if you have a collection of them, they become more than the sum of their parts. So, you know, a 1980s, paperback of Pride and Prejudice might not be much more than just a vessel for the text, right. But if you had in it, every paperback edition issued by that publisher over a 30 year period, suddenly you're starting to tell a story with what you're putting together. So that kind of thing can be done very excessively, when you start talking to people like booksellers, and this isn't an ad. But you know, when you start talking to people who are very, very knowledgeable, about about a subject matter about something that you're interested in, that can take you into some really interesting directions. And you may, you might become that booksellers, Jane Austen customer. So when he gets something or she gets something, they'll call you, and they'll say, Look, I've just got this thing, I think you'd think you'd like it. So book collecting doesn't have to be terribly expensive. Collecting first editions of the greatest works of literature ever written, is is expensive, expensive. Yeah. But collecting is, is is more than that. And those things are wonderful. And they're a privilege to buy and sell. That's really, the majority of what I do is dealing in that sort of material. But there's a lot of very interesting stuff out there that can be bought, you know, quite excessively, in my my own collections that that I have, I very rarely spend a lot of money on a on a single item, some of the funniest things I've ever, ever bought. That, you know, has been for, you know, 510 1520 pounds, but they're, they're still hugely fun things to
Ashley 33:01
do. No, I so agree. It's and it's funny, because I do have a collection of Pride and Prejudice editions. Great. That was okay, I was perfect. It's fun. And I remember making I made a tick talk about this because I think there was a period of time where people were feeling, maybe, and maybe because there's a lot of young people on the app. But feeling like, oh, we have to have a big bookshelf or a pretty bookshelf, to be able to be a book talker or to talk about books. You don't you absolutely don't. And I think too, like, there's some of us that have been collecting for a long time. And I remember when I was in college, like I couldn't afford to go buy the fanciest nicest books. And my first copy of Pride and Prejudice was like a $5. Paperback, like, it wasn't anything special. But I love that copy. And like, I'll keep it always because of the memories attached to it. And so I think there's things like that, that I love that you bring that up, because I think a lot of times when people first get into books, or see people's collections, and they think, Oh, I'm so far away from having that or ability to get those things. And it's, it doesn't have to be expensive, if you
Tom 34:06
sort of like the idea of collecting those, but you're not sure what you want. That's a great thing to do go to go to a bookshop or a book fair, and have a look and pick up some things and look at them and and then and see what, see what gets you excited and see what gets the heart rate up a little bit. Because you know, that there will be things that that you don't know, you know, that that sort of serendipity of not knowing you're going to, you know, find something or like something and it was I remember, you know, university, those those late nights in the library, when you go into the stacks looking for the book that's going to sort of be the key thing to crack the essay you're working on. And how often it is that it's the book next to the book you're looking for that just sort of catches your eye and that is actually actually the Key say, Yeah, gearing sort of diving in. And getting your hands on these things is a great, great entry. Yeah.
Ashley 35:08
Well and taking advantage of university libraries like I've, I was really lucky. So I went to University of Washington up in Seattle, and we had like 26 libraries on campus like it's massive. And Sousa Lowe is by far like the most iconic one, it's the one that everybody takes the picture of like the Harry Potter room, like the graduate. Yeah, I used to go study there, like Cathy's are just sitting in here. And people don't even know that these gems are, are on the shelves, kids, if you're in college, go to your go to your library,
Tom 35:41
absolutely befriend librarians. And especially if you've got if you've got a special collections at your university, and you know, there will be things in there that will be related to your course. And all you have to do is send an email or go and talk to a librarian, and they will show you a book that's, you know, 100 years old, hundreds of years old, and you can go and, you know, look through it and be careful with it. And and that sort of thing will enrich your studies into mutual sort of understanding. What
Ashley 36:15
are your favorite genres to read when you're not thinking about your rare collection? Do you have time to do that?
Tom 36:25
Yeah, yes. Now I do have country as a bookseller people think that we get to spend a lot of time reading and the truth is that we date that we spent a lot of time sort of using books, you know, researching. So using things like bibliographies and autobiographies and in history book, so I occasionally read that sort of thing for pleasure. But I try not to too much because it sort of feels like a bit of a busman's holiday, I read a lot. I read a lot of novels, and not really genre specific and quite interested in in mid century. British fiction. writers like Anthony Paul and Elizabeth Taylor. Kingsley Amos, I'm a great lover of, but then I've sorted. Also, I've been reading a bit more sort of contemporary stuff recently, that's probably a toxic side effect. I would have thought, yeah, there's any so many times, when you see the book, you know, come up on your FYE, like, the eighth time, I was like, maybe something in this and often there is, I read love poetry. That's a great sort of escapism. For me, and I like that you can sort of, you know, dip in and out of it pretty, pretty easily. Because I work quite a lot, you know, I'm basically right, you know, from sort of eight until eight or nine those days I'm working, if you include making videos as working, which I do, say, sort of outside of those, those 13 hours being able to sort of really get deep into into a pub, I enjoy and then I read, you know, a fair amount of, of nonfiction. Mainly, mainly history, there's a few different periods of history that I'm interested in. So, so yeah, I sort of try and keep it try and keep it broad. And then I, you know, if I just need something competent, I'll go to my set of PG Woodhouse, and pick out pick out something I haven't read in a while and be whisked off to landings. And yeah.
Ashley 38:30
Do you have a recent read that you would recommend?
Tom 38:34
That's a very good question. I mean, I just finished. Like two nights ago, I finished reading The Secret History, which I thought was brilliant. That I don't think that needs to be recommended because it's like, popular. You might be like me saying, Have you ever heard of Shakespeare? He's quite good. He'll get one one thing that actually I have impressed on on a few people that have late friends of mine. And they've all they've I think mainly all of them have enjoyed it, or they've just been very polite about it is it is a novel sequence by Anthony Paul called a dance to the new Skiff time, which is a 12 volume series of novels published from the sort of in the middle part of the 20th century. And it's sort of often referred to as the sort of English Proust whereas actually, it's nothing it's nothing like it's not like okay, it's it's entirely observational and outward looking rather than inward looking. But he writes with diminished remarkable empathy and emotional intelligence. And you basically it's, it's narrated by a character called Nicholas Jenkins. and it takes him from being a schoolboy to being elderly. And you have this massive cast of characters that, you know, float in and out of his life, like a, you know, a dance to music of time, which is a beautiful painting by Prusa. That hangs in the Wallace collection in London. And as a sort of Reading project, if people are into into big reading projects, it's very fun, because each novel is is relatively short. So okay.
Ashley 40:31
So it's not like a Wheel of Time situation or you know, where it's 1000 pages per novel.
Tom 40:37
Next couple 100 pages per novel, very digestible. And yeah, what I say to people is, you know, try try a book a month for a year and see, see how you get on. And feedbacks pretty good so far. Yeah, the wheel of time I tried to read.
Ashley 40:56
I still haven't read it yet. Yeah, I would like to, but
Tom 41:00
I've been halfway through the first book for about six months. But I thought I thought it was tremendously good. I've just had, you know, other things have taken my attention. In the meantime,
Ashley 41:12
I do feel like some of those books like I've, I've had, like, Terry, good kind, like some of these, like Wizard's First Rule. I think it's the first book and it's, it's, I think, well over 1000 pages, and all of them are like that. And there's, you know, 10 or 11 of that, you know, and it just, it's a big commitment. Just yeah, do you have so many things that you want to read? And so I think sometimes, and I I'm very much a completionist, where I I like to read them all at once. I don't want to have to like wait in between. Yeah. So then it's like you're, you know, stuck with that for a while. So, yeah.
Tom 41:48
decision to commit. Yeah, yeah,
Ashley 41:51
definitely. What would be any auto buy authors that you have, like, if you and this can be recent, like, not not related to the shop, but just for yourself? Like, do you have any authors where you're like, if they come out with a new book, you're like, I'm 100% Getting that or do you tend to I know, you said mid century. So do you tend to have new books?
Tom 42:12
I don't have the time in the past actually. Okay. Okay. Just making sure mainly, mainly in the past, I admit, at Woodson, Tobin. He's an English writer, the best best name for his Patrick Melrose novels, which the first three books came out in the early 90s. And then he finished the sequence in the early 2000s. I like Paul, my more Dean's poetry, when he has a new patient that comes out. He's an Irish poet. He's very good. Alice Oswald, who's a poet from the south of England, that which is a long winded way of saying there aren't many authors is this. Otto Otto by that and that's that probably just cuz I did, I didn't read enough contemporary. All my favorite writers are dead. Just, I just have a backlist to work through which, which, frankly, is plenty to be getting on with. Right. I don't think you do have like readers anxiety when you're just like, terrified about all the books in the world that you haven't read. Yeah. Yeah, all the time. It's, it's daunting. And I was I was talking to someone about this last week. And we came to the conclusion that actually, I could, I could stop working now. I can never work a day in my life. And I could do nothing but read every great book that's ever been written. And I can do that for you know, let's say that for another, you know, 60 years that I wouldn't get through them all. You know, it's a it's an insurmountable amount of reading. So, so that kind of pegged me back and I was like, okay, I can I can chill out a bit and just, you know, peace with the fact that I'm not going to read everything. Yeah.
Ashley 43:57
But I think it also reminds you of, it's okay to DNF a book like it's Oh yeah, yeah. And I think so many people feel like oh, I have I started it I have to finish and I'm like, there are way too many good books out there to read something that you hate or near unliking and I like to give books a chance you know, to get into them but I just I've gotten a lot more comfortable in the last few years I think because of that like thinking about oh my gosh, I just have so many that I'm so excited to read I don't want to waste my time. Yeah. That I can't get back on something that's it's supposed to be
Tom 44:31
fun reading readings a choice and it's an it's a hobby and yes, there is that sort of you know, for some people that kind of high minded element to it, but it's it's supposed to be enjoyable to say no, absolutely big, prepaid and dumb if you're not enjoying a book, just, you know, cast aside, toss it in the bin and move on. Now, that's one of the wonderful things about tick tock The the sort of, you know, mythical algorithm gets sort of a bad a bad name and in broader terms for kind of being this like, brainless, addictive thing. Right. Right. But, but one thing that it does brilliantly well is that it does bring people together with with similar interests. That is, that is so important. Especially, you know, there are so many niches on Tik Tok that, Oh, yeah. Because, you know, those videos wouldn't, wouldn't be put in front of us. But if you have, like a really particular hobby, and you want to find people, you know, in, in that field, it does it for you. I think that's a really, you know, really powerful and beautiful thing, especially if you're sort of, you know, feeling feeling lonely or feeling like you don't know, people who who have similar interests, being sort of connected in that way. I think is really wonderful. And there are obviously other sides of Chico that are wonderful. Right? It does deserve credit for that.
Ashley 46:04
I remember telling somebody because I think I think people still aren't, you know, I'm old. And so, like, a lot of people are always like, oh, yeah, a lot of my friends still don't have it. Like they're not, you know, from from college and stuff. And I like what, tick tock that's for, you know, kids and dancing. Yeah. They still think that. And it's funny, because I know, it's there's so many like, it's the app that brings me so much joy, like, Yes, I get frustrated, like I think we all do about Yeah, you know, you spent hours on a video and it flops or whatever. But I think more than that, like I remember just getting through the pandemic, these lockdowns and just laughing like it, it makes me laugh so much and the other apps out there. While I love them in different ways, I think there is a lot of that comparison trap that you can fall into, or you see the highlight reel of everybody's perfect life and tech talks where it's real, it's like half the time, you know, at least as a woman, like half the time most of us don't have makeup on we're like, not worried about it, you know, like, it's just, it seems a lot more genuine than other apps. And I really love that aspect of it too. Because it doesn't feel you know, you hate to throw the authenticity word out there, but it does feel a lot more authentic than
Tom 47:23
other visuals. One of the things that drew me to it actually, was that none of my friends had it. Oh, yeah, still. And still, none of my friends had it. Like, I didn't. I didn't pay they know that you have it. Some of them did. Like not okay, no, like, I don't post any. I didn't like post like reels on Instagram or anything like that. Okay. The reason I didn't do that, because my friends would see it. Right? I'd be embarrassed, right? Whereas a million strangers, that's fine.
Ashley 47:59
That's fine. It's so true. It cracks me up. One, you know, tick tock, every once awhile will ask you like, Oh, do you want to connect your contacts? I'm like, No, absolutely not never.
Tom 48:08
Probably my first like, few months of consistently making videos, like I wasn't in any of them. Okay, it would just be me like not even like, okay, it would just be me like sharing a book with some, like, I just make it on the app with some text. Yeah. And, yeah, it was like that, like quite a quite a long time. And then I like, you know, like, they, you know, sort of the lamest thing ever, but you sort of summon up the courage to put yourself in front of camera. Right? So filming yourself, which is like, a weird thing to do. Right? Yeah. And, and actually, like, I'm so glad I did, because you can connect with people more and make more interesting content and sort of put your put yourself into it a bit more, which I think, you know, it's, like, provides value for the person watching it, but it's also quite, quite rewarding. But But yeah, I mean, even even now, when I look through, like, winning says like, you know, find friends and I scrolled like, what like, my Facebook friends that are on Tik Tok, like, obviously, what, which is great.
Ashley 49:19
So the question I asked everybody, is, if you could visit any fictional land or universe where would you go first?
Tom 49:32
Golly, okay.
Ashley 49:34
I know I've got all the hard questions.
Tom 49:35
Nay, absolutely. I could say, Narnia, I'd be quite sick. Okay. That Do you know, the sort of the Paris in the 20s that we sort of almost as cliched as saying nanny or Midler, the Paris of the 20s that Did she get from reading? It's not even a fictional world, right? It's just just the past that Paris between the wars that we get from reading Gertrude Stein and Hemingway and Fitzgerald, lb, and Henry Miller and people like that. I think that would be a fun time to be alive. It'll be a fun time. Do you know what actually could be a very fun time to be a book collector? I would.
Ashley 50:27
Oh, I wish there was time travel.
Tom 50:31
Yeah, I would read bookshop. Yeah, I'd be buying, you know, Shakespeare failures, like they're going out of fashion. I have eight copies of The Great Gatsby in a dust jacket. I get I get Fitzgerald to sign all of them. Yeah, no, that would be that'd be some some superpower to sort of time travel through
Ashley 50:50
bookshop favorite place to read.
Tom 50:54
The beach in St. Andrews West sounds okay. In the sand dunes there as that is the best place in the world.
Ashley 51:01
And then your last reread, which I think you may have mentioned it earlier.
Tom 51:06
Yeah, probably be the last time I reread dance to music time would be the last thing I reread. As you know, more recently than that i Last month I reread The Great Gatsby for the first time in in probably six years.
Ashley 51:24
Oh, wow. Okay,
Tom 51:25
I read it religiously is like a 16 year old and basically recite it and then haven't revisited it since now for quite a long time.
Ashley 51:37
It's fun to go back to those old favorites. Like I used to have so many books that I would reread every single year, but then this it's just kept growing. And then I wasn't getting a lot of new books. By Yeah, yeah.
Tom 51:50
It's nice, because the big state change, but we do. Yes. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, you go back to them, and they're like, and Gatsby is sort of getting that, you know, sort of like a bowl of overripe fruit at a certain point, but then sometimes, you know, it's like, getting back and enjoying, you know, vintage of wine that you haven't drank in many. I love that. Just as good as ever.
Ashley 52:15
Yeah. What books are on your bedside table right now? Which, if you're packing, I totally understand if there are none.
Tom 52:23
No, that there are I bought it. I bought a nice pile of goods, but water stands a few weeks ago, so there was there was the secret history. They were all kind of like booked hockey books. Okay. So that was a bit chalky ones were the secret history. And when the coffee gets cold, that okay, got one that everyone's been reading. And then the other thing is I've got a book of short stories by boy has called the elf and other stories. I read the first story of that because it's narrated by an antiquarian bookseller. So Oh, yeah. Okay. But I've got the rest of that to go through. Yeah, these these, these three. Okay. There's actually probably nothing more exciting. In what I do. Then. The right book finding the right person. Yeah. That was okay. It was perfect. Yeah, it was so great. But I don't know what that is in New York. Because I
Ashley 53:37
flat Wait, we don't have them here. Yeah,
Tom 53:39
yeah. I was in New York in March. And I spent like a week trying to get the coffee. I wanted it. Yeah, I got, you know, I got cups that big. And I got cups like that big.
Ashley 53:49
So any books that you're looking forward to for the rest of the year that are potentially coming out? If you're reading anything modern these days? I,
Tom 53:59
I didn't think I could name a single book that's due to be published this year. When I was at topic. Yeah, it'd be I would be on it. You'd be on it. Yeah, I'm sure there are tremendous books coming out. I'm just, I'm just not the guy to recommend me more. People think that because I'm a bookseller. I've got, you know, sort of cupboard full with stealing and destroyed Kindles that I've pilfered. But, but Nick, you know, this, they're sort of my you know, 1000 page novel, but may publishable touch, you know, right. Rather than that, you know, the the snippy sensational short story that that's all the rage.