Sandspout Bookstore

About the Sandspout

 

*THE SHOP’S VALUES* None really. If it moves and you want to buy it, then please make an offer. That will include the furniture and my mother.

*HOW BOOKS ARE SOLD* The shop accepts cash, but not credit cards at the moment because it’s a faff (although one day it might not be a faff). No plastic or paper bags; usually your book(s) will be wrapped in paper.

*HOW MUCH FOR* Actually you should buy a book because you want to read it, not because it is cheap. This doesn’t give booksellers a license to overcharge (unless they can get away with it). Historically, cod liver oil was part of the bookselling pharmacy: when copyright law was codified in 1709, the statute that related specifically to booksellers required them to price books fairly. Any customer who thought the price of any book to be too high was liable to report it to the Archbishop of Canterbury: £5 per book sold was the fine. Most of our second-hand books are £2, some are more but some are less. We think it is all fair, but do report us to the Archbishop if you think not. (The current incumbent is a spanner, so don’t hold your breath.)

*GENERAL STUFF* Here is an anti-wi-fi zone. The bookstore for sure thinks that the internet is a great thing, but that the written word is even greater. It abhors democracy and adores anarchy (hates postmodern, dodecaphonic slush, that best kept for the catastrophic French). Read the Sandspout’s pompous manifesto here.

*WHO’S WHO* The owner is a crock of an ex-bookseller (a.k.a. Dicky the Book Spiv, read his tale here). The bookstore in Dolgellau can be described as his coffin bookshop, is not fitted out by an undertaker, but is a place to shelve tomes for the last time.

*YOU KNOW MY NAME (LOOK UP THE NUMBER)*
Your chance to subscribe to the Sandspout’s newsletter, sent by email as and when.

*ALSO* The Bookstore has an associated publishing house, the ABPress. Its submission policy, to be very clear, is non-existent (and not to be encouraged: it publishes out of copyright texts, so you have to be dead first).

*THE SORT OF CUSTOMER SERVICE YOU CAN EXPECT* Two examples are here, but I can do much worse: Black Books and the brilliant but now forgotten Marty Feldman.

*IS COMMUNISM ALIVE & WELL IN DOLGELLAU?*  The shop will seek to be participative (offers to help with the hoovering are appreciated always). This does not mean it is a zany or hippy kingdom, although love and world peace, long hair and beards, organic crap and shamanism may be encouraged. You can expect 10% discount if you have dreadz (cool), are a milk maid, or dig Miles Davis and can explain why.

The shop, like all good lidos, has a strictly no petting, diving or bombing policy (unless with the owner…).


illustrations © Christopher Vinz