Independent Bookseller of the Month: The Bookseller Crow on the Hill, Crystal Palace, London
Every month we feature a different bookshop – we ask them to tell us what makes them special and what they like most about what they do. This month it’s the turn of The Bookseller Crow on the Hill, in Crystal Palace, South London.
The Bookseller Crow on the Hill had its 12th birthday on June 1st 2009. Owned by Jonathan Main and Justine Crow, each with considerably more than 20 years independent and corporate bookselling and publishing experience between them, it is open 7 days a week, come rain or shine. Tired of working for other people and never getting rich, when the opportunity arose, it wasn’t a difficult decision to eschew the delights of Camberwell, Clapham and the Walworth Road where we’d been regularly up against crack’s front line, and take up shop – as it were – in what is known as the Fresh Air Suburb, high up above London.
Introduce yourselves.
Jonathan is a magazine junkie who rides a bike up Gipsy Hill everyday.
Justine is a swimming teacher who slots behind the till in between classes.
Kirsty is actually employed by a literary agent but works Saturdays and holidays to keep the other two in touch with the world at the bottom of the hill.
Are there any specialisations, enthusiasms or interests you and your staff have that are reflected in the
shop’s stock?
Because we are a neighbourhood bookshop with a really mixed demographic, our stock reflects all the eccentricities that implies, including graphic novels, books on local history and especially the Crystal Palace, rafts of children’s picture books, lots of visual stuff, modern fiction in hardback, lots of imported American fiction that you won’t find anywhere else in the UK, oddities on everything from camping, politics, cookery, music to yoga. People claim to pick up things here that they find nowhere else in London. It even surprises us what we find on our shelves.
Do you work with local authors, hold regular events and readings, etc.?
We hold regular events, our most recent being Baby in the Mirror by Charles Fernyhough. And before that the three day long Crystal Palace Children’s Book Festival which was organised by our friend and local children’s author Alex Milway who filled our premises with thriller writers, cartoonists and puppeteers. It was exhilarating, if messy, to say the very least.
What are you reading at the moment?
Jonathan recently re-read The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter because it is set in Crystal Palace and is currently reading Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer, a biography of E Nesbit, and a proof of Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon.
Justine has been carrying the Sword of Honour trilogy around for weeks.
Kirsty reads lots of manuscripts. And stuff on beekeeping.
What are your criteria for any book promotions (e.g. 3 for 2, window placements, etc.) you may run?
Because we have the power, we get to decide what we promote and it is rarely done on a tedious three-for-two basis, a sales idea done to death, that demeans hard-working authors and transforms a perfectly smart shopfloor into a scruffy bargain basement. We prefer to fill our window with items unseen in supermarkets, quirky kids titles, new titles neglected by an unimaginative national press and more importantly, with books we adore. We discount if we feel like it. Ask nicely.
What makes your shop THE shop to visit when in town on a book-buying mission?
Crystal Palace was once well-known for second hand books and those ghosts have never quite left town, but we suspect we are a destination shop – certainly, other traders adjusted their opening hours to match ours – that customers visit from all over the world, literally; we have regulars who drop in from Canada and even Peterborough. We help publish a community mag, The Transmitter; we always have great sounds – currently playing Moussu T – that people often try to buy; we have a comfy garden bench scattered with cushions plus a children’s play table so that parents can shop undistracted by trivial needs. But we still ain’t rich!
You can call the shop on 020 8771 8831, find them at:
The Bookseller Crow
50 Westow Street
Crystal Palace
London
SE19 3AF
and visit their website at www.booksellercrow.co.uk.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I’ve never been but I have ordered books from here. I would definately seek it out if I was in that part of London.