I got the tube to Wood Green and headed to a bookshop ran by someone that I talk to on Twitter – The Big Green Bookshop.
I’d never been there before and so I didn’t know what to expect. When I went in and looked at the table display I smiled for the first time in fuck knows how long. A lovely arrangement of books that I had read and loved, published by independent and obscure publishers and so obviously thought about as important. You wouldn’t find that in a fucking Waterstones.
I wandered around the whole shop looking at everything. It just felt so nice and I felt normal, where everything else in my life felt so fucking completely out of my control I knew what to do here, and for the first time in six weeks I felt safe.
I went back to the table and looked at the books there again. There was one, All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman, that I hadn’t read before. I’d read The Tiny Wife, however, (it was the first book I ever reviewed on my blog) and decided that was the book I was looking for, the book that would help me read again.
I left it there and went over to a shelf where I rummaged in my bag for a piece of paper. On the back of the receipt I wrote a note, scrunched it up in my hand and went to the counter, picking up All My Friends Are Superheroes on the way.
‘Good choice,’ said the man at the desk ‘It’s a wonderful book, it will make you feel happy inside,’ he said, pointing at his chest.
I was so nervous.
‘Like The Tiny Wife?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t read The Tiny Wife,’ he said.
‘You should,’ I said. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Then I will,’ he said.
I handed over my money and he tucked the receipt into the book.
‘Are you Simon?’ I asked.
‘… Yes …’ he said, obviously unsure where this was going.
‘Here,’ I put my hand down on the counter with the note sticking out underneath. ‘Don’t look at this until after I’ve gone, okay?’
‘… Okay …’ he said.
I picked up my book and left the shop.
On the tube home, for the first time since I’d been alone I opened a book and began to read. And he was right, it made me feel happy inside.
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Copyright
The Friday Project
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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This edition published by The Friday Project 2013
Copyright © Anonymous
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007514991
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