Hugh Gilmore

Scenes from a Bookshop: Stories Hugh Gilmore

SCENES FROM A BOOKSHOP, based on true stories, invites browsers to come backstage and see what really goes on in an old book shop. While the middle-aged manager, Brian, awaits the return of "The Poetry Lady" he thinks he adores, he tries to buy and sell old and rare books from a collection of colorful people who are dying, moving, divorcing, down on their luck, or just plain beyond understanding. On one house call Brian suffers from guilt while he dismantles an old man's library as the man sits nearby and watches him. Back in the shop, he gets a phone call from an abrupt man who's in a hurry to find a book called, Sexual Astrology. On another call, a beautiful "Character Actress" involves him in her family drama. Later he meets a charming widow whose husband figures in, "Bipolar's what they call it nowadays." In "Chad and Billy Climb to Heaven," he climbs up a broken stepladder into an attic of broken dreams. In "Bags for the Big Bang," a library representing the big bang theory of the universe arrives at the shop in plastic trash bags. In the final story, he's "Trapped in a Bookshop" at night by a maniac who's raiding the Free Books bin outside. And all the while Brian dreams of re-meeting the beautiful "poetry lady" who asked him to find a book for her. A FASCINATING LOOK BACKSTAGE IN THE WORLD OF OLD BOOKS.