Category: Ongoing Series
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Tales from A&R, Part 5 – The Forbidden Book
Apart from a few mishaps and the casualty of a children’s music sampler, the move to the new A&R store in Murray Street was a success. The new store was much narrower, with densely packed shiny new shelves and service counters at the front and back. The big advantage was a basement floor, accessible by…
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Tales from A&R, Part 4 – I Love My Milk
Sometime in the first year of the new millennium, A&R Perth decided to expand. Business was booming; there were a slew of new female crime authors and the book wars between Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were money in the bank. Katherine was happy, but stressed. She was moving up the ranks to…
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Tales from A&R, Part 3 – Spruiking
The city of Perth is pretty small compared to most other state capitals, and Perth in the year 2000 was still referred to by its inhabitants as “Dullsville.” Every now and then politicians would try and butter us up for our vote and refer to Perth and Western Australia in general as the “Cinderella State,”…
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Tales from A&R, Part 2 – Customers and Casuals
The week after getting my book store position I turned up bright and early on Saturday morning, ready to start a job that was cultured, intelligent, and didn’t involve cleaning. “Here you go,” said Catherine, handing me a damp cloth and a spray bottle. “You can get started on the windows.” I think my face…
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Tales from A&R, Part 1 – Getting the Job
Let me tell you a story about my life in books. I spent seven years at a bookstore located in Perth, Western Australia, some of which were fun, some of which were awful, and most of which were a wonderful kind of low-key weird. This all happened in the late 90s/early 2000s, and at the…