Shrew Books – Indie Bookshop Of The Month – June 2023

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1 Jun

In 2020, Fowey’s much-loved bookshop, Bookends, closed its doors, but not for long! Kate Longman was ready and waiting to reveal Shrew Books as the shop’s latest incarnation.

Browse the bookshelves and you will see the latest fiction and non-fiction, but you will also discover a range of Cornish writers and Cornish settings. Kate’s love for nature writing is also reflected in the titles you’ll see, from picture books to novels.

Before opening Shrew Books, Kate worked for many years in the book industry and her knowledge and experience can be clearly seen. She’s held literary events and book signings in the town with authors such as Cathy Rentzenbrink, AJ West, Wyl Menmuir and Raynor Winn and she’s set up a book subscription service (we would recommend this as a gift for the book lover in your life!)! Read on to find out who Bea is and what Kate is currently reading…

Salonistas will get 20% off each purchase at Shrew Books by using the code LITSALON

When did you first open your doors?

September 2020

Do you remember the first book you sold?

Sadly no! The first day I opened was a complete blur. All I truly remember is that the shelves were absolutely raided by the end of the day, and the dramatic realisation that I probably didn’t actually have enough stock to last me a full week!

What has never gone out of stock (because it’s always popular).

I can never run out of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – there would be rioting in the streets.

Is there a book you’d refuse to sell?

That’s a complicated question! A little while ago I was asked by two different customers in fairly quick succession for books by two different authors who I refuse to stock: Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson… And after the last lockdown I got quite a few requests from a couple of my regular customers for books that promoted an anti-vax agenda, which definitely made me pretty uncomfortable. Ultimately I decided that I could choose the titles I wanted to permanently stock, and which titles I wouldn’t stock under any circumstances, but that it wasn’t my role (or within my ethical position) to censor what people choose to read, so I could order particular books for those individuals. The same social rules that allow me to read whatever I want as long as I can access it, also allow those people to do the same thing. I might not be happy about their choices, I may violently disagree with their political positions, but by refusing to supply a book I know I can get hold of for them very easily I would be denying them the same rights that I feel entitled to as a reader. However, those books won’t sit on the shelves in Shrew Books – they can sit in someone else’s personal library instead.

Do you have a bookshop pet?

I do! It’s Bea, a pretty little calico cat. Like most cats, she’s alternately chocolate-box-cute, and a ruthless vole-catching terrorist. We live above the shop, so she can come and go as she pleases – though she usually disappears from the shop if there’s a small child about to tug on her tail, or an excitable dog.

What are you reading right now?

I usually have a few things on the go, so at the moment I’m reading Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova, The Colony by Audrey Magee, and I’m listening to The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber. I’ve also got to quickly read The Lonely Man by Chris Power, as it’s our next book club title!

You are able to give one book to every child. Which title do you choose?

That’s such a tough decision… I could be really serious and choose something I adored as a child which has a great moral lesson in it, which would probably be Skellig… But I think instead I’ll choose another of my favourites from my own childhood, and that’s The Jolly Postman and Other People’s Letters. It’s never not delighted me, and I love sharing it.

Best thing overheard in your bookshop?

Hard to pick one thing… It could be basically any time anyone has told their friend about a book that they’ve spotted on the shelf that ‘changed their life’, as hearing that never stops being sweet. Or hearing people struggle to pronounce ‘Fowey’, or ‘Daphne du Maurier’. Or the time that someone accidentally farted behind one of the racks of shelves, and we both had to pretend that nothing had happened when she came to the till. But my favourite moment was fairly early on after taking on the shop when I was shelving books out of sight, and I heard a woman just outside the front door tell her friend that “a cool young woman has just bought the shop, and you must check it out”, and she went bright pink when she saw me emerge. It really made me chuckle, but also made me glow for the whole day afterwards.