Receipt from the Book Cart
a windy day of bookselling
Today I had my first outdoor book cart event of the season at the monthly vintage market. It was a chilly 32 degrees when I woke up, and it didn’t really warm much until noon, so I was wrapped up in a blanket, scarf, gloves, and puffy vest for the first few hours of the market. Not ideal, but far better than the mid-summer markets when I have to drink multiple bottles of water to replenish the sweat I’ve lost.
One of my favorite Substacks as of late has been
’s Receipt from the Bookshop. If you haven’t read her delightful series already, I encourage you to check it out—she details the wonderful, weird, and funny interactions with customers that she has running an independent bookshop. So, today, I decided to channel my inner Receipt from the Bookshop and bring you a one-time special: Receipt from the Book Cart. Read on for some excerpts from my day…
My first customers are two women and a kid. Possibly they’re the mother and grandmother. They make sure to tell the little girl to handle the books very carefully and to only touch them just so.
First sale of the day was Demon Copperhead, and I couldn’t have picked better myself. Thanks, Carmen, if you’re reading!
A young woman stops by and picks up Tar Baby by Toni Morrison. I tell her that Toni Morrison is the best and she shyly smiles, almost immediately puts the book back down, and proceeds to walk away. Sigh.
An older gentleman stops by and tells me that he likes my sign. Which is funny, because I don’t have a sign.
Tar Baby woman comes back 20 minutes later and buys the book! Huzzah!
The wind is fierce today: the other vendors at the market are constantly chasing after scarves that have run away, or picking up fallen clothing racks. I opted to not put out any stickers, prints, or bookmarks for fear of them flying across town, and I think I made the right decision.
Two young woman stop by.
Woman #1: Have you read this book? It’s so good.
Woman #2: No, not yet.
Woman #1: You should get this! Oh wait, I own it. You can borrow mine.
Woman #1: Have you read this one?
Woman #2: No, I haven’t.
Woman #1: Well, you can borrow my copy of it too.
Women #1 then proceeds to check a third friend’s Goodreads to get her a birthday gift that she hasn’t read yet, and ends up buying The Year of Magical Thinking. Not exactly a heart-warming birthday gift, but a good selection nonetheless.
Perhaps my most picked-up books of the morning are a 50th anniversary edition of The Hobbit and Allen Ginsberg’s Reality Sandwiches. Spoiler alert: nobody buys them the entire day. But I do have many wonderful conversations about how creepy the cover art of Gollum is.
Another young woman comes up to the cart and after looking for a minute, she says, “I’ve read most of these! I’m trying to find the ones I haven’t read,” to which I respond, “You must have good taste.” She ends up buying a Ferrante and The Rabbit Hutch.
There’s almost always a dog in view at the market today. It’s great.
A guy stops by and after looking for a minute, asks if I have any classics. I look at the cart and the only true classic I can see is Jane Eyre. Luckily, a woman shopping at the vendor on my left corroborates: “Jane Eyre is fantastic.” He buys it and I hope he loves Jane!
The air is finally getting warmer and I can take off my scarf. The mittens stay on, though…
A young woman sees The Bluest Eye from a distance and (literally) runs up to the cart! “I’ve never seen a hard copy of Toni Morrison, I’m a Kindle user!” I tell her that I have a few more and within seconds, she’s holding four Morrisons in her arms. After coming back down to Earth, she realizes she can’t buy four books at once… She ultimately decides on a cool vintage mass market copy of Tar Baby (that’s two in one day!) and Baldwin’s Another Country.
A kind older gentleman who frequents the vintage market comes up and asks me how my ‘river research’ is going. Good, thanks. [Later he stops by with a plastic bag of glass marbles… Still not sure what he was doing with them.]
A man stops by and picks up one of my ‘blind date with a book’ wrapped books, and without even reading the blurb, tells me he wants to buy it. He then sees the bargain bin and picks up a copy of The Color Purple as well.
‘Oh look at the books, I didn’t even see the books!’ a girl says to her friend as they walk out of the market… without stopping to look at the books…
My final customer of the day spends nearly 15 minutes picking up books and intently reading their back covers and first few pages. He stays a few minutes past the market’s close, but I can’t be angry, because he asks me good questions about them and ultimately purchases one of my all-time favorites on my recommendation: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez.
That’s all for now, friends! I sold a total of 25 books today and despite the cold, I enjoyed spending the day outdoors. I don’t have any more markets until July, as I’ll be traveling during the May and June markets, but you can stay updated on the book cart’s events via the Instagram.