Forward – until the future, whatever it was going to beApologies to anyone who saw me shedding a tear on the train recently. I wasn’t poorly, I wasn’t homesick – no I’d just finished Emma Straubs heartwarming and hopeful ‘This Time Tomorrow’ – it’s wise, wonderful, gentle and kind. We all get stuck sometimes and don’t know which path to follow but if we have love around us, courage and honesty in our hearts we can face the future.
This book highlights the most tender of relationships between father and daughter. You will be smiling through your tears. It’s like a big, warm Dad hug.Quietly contemplative with a nostalgic feel – observant and quirky.We can all time travel to remember and celebrate the best times in our lives and cherish the moments that made us.I recently had the pleasure of meeting Emma as part of her UK tour. Not only is she an author but a Bookseller too – she owns ‘Books Are Magic’ in Brooklyn.Despite her busy schedule she was happy to answer a few fangirl questions from a fellow bookseller.So travel with us from Booka to Brooklyn to find out more:
Can you describe a typical day in your writer/bookseller life?
When I’m in the throes of writing a book, I’d say it’s a pretty even split. Drop the kids at school, walk to the store, come home at 3 or 4, be on kid patrol until bedtime, fall asleep! Or drop the kids at school, walk home, sit in my office with the cats and then stop when I hear my children screaming my name. When I’m finishing a book, I might not be in the store for a week or two, but I try not to abandon it for too long. I love both my jobs.
In your experience, what is harder writing or bookselling?
Bookselling, a thousand percent! When you make a mistake writing, you are the only one who knows! You can fix it, or back track, and no one is the wiser. When you make a mistake at the store, or do something badly, that affects other people. Bookselling is infinitely harder because being a boss is harder.
I have to confess that I have been stalking your Bookshop instragram – it looks like you and your team have a lot of fun. Can you describe the vibe and ethos of your bookshop?
We do have a lot of fun, and we also work very, very hard. Books Are Magic is a very high volume store, and so the booksellers are always going a thousand directions. They are incredible. We work hard, we have fun, we have energy and enthusiasm, and also, we care deeply about each other and our community.
They say that dog owners grow to resemble their dogs. Do you think bookshops are an extension of their owner’s personality and what does your bookshop say about you?
Ha! Our store is quite bright and sunny and sometimes loud, and I would say that those apply to me, too.
Do you have a bookshop crush?
Oh, all of them! On my trip the Uk this time, I fell truly in love with Fleur’s Sevenoaks bookshop, and my tour around the US, I’ve been admiring every bookstore—the big ones, the tiny ones, all of them. That’s why I love bookstore—there are so many of us, and we are all so unique. It’s a beautiful thing.
What is your guilty reading secret?
I don’t believe in guilty reading! All reading is good, don’t you think?
What do you think of the UK cover of your soon to be published novel ‘This Time Tomorrow?
I think it’s wonderful—the book is a love letter to New York, and to my dad, and even though the book is a tearjerker, it’s also buoyant, and funny, and I think the cover really nails that feeling.
Finally, can you give us your current ‘three to read’ recommendations?
Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Casey McQuiston’s I Kissed Shara Wheeler! All delightful fun, and joyous, and full of heart.