A Katie Clapham Appreciation Post
But with high school vibes
A place to explore: Bookshops to follow on Substack
Whenever I travel, I always find local bookstores to visit. Nowadays, I’m usually looking for a local book to buy since I like to tie together a book, a place, and a lesson to teach in this here newsletter. But even when not planning a blog to write, I always pop into bookstores. It’s the only shopping I do on vacation (or ever, really.)
I’ve gotten a bit obsessed with Substack writers who own (or dream of owning) a bookstore. My obsession is to the point where I’m planning entire European fantasy vacations based on bookshops that I read about on Substack. Here are my top three:
Escape to the Bookshop, written by Sarah Bringhurst Familia. Sarah is an American living in Amsterdam, but she recently bought a little stone house in Narni, Italy. The high-ceilinged cellar of the ancient home will one day house a bookshop.
The bookshop isn’t open yet, but it’s fun to follow along with Sarah on her trips to Italy as she begins to carefully furnish the house in thrifted antiques. I feel like I’m an early investor, watching her dream build from the ground up.
She also writes about expat life, family, and post the most gorgeous pictures of Amsterdam and Narni, the fairy-tale like town of her future.
Once it opens, I’ll time my trip to her bookstore in Italy to coincide with the medieval festival in Narni, which Sarah writes about beautifully here.
Next, we are heading to London:
This Substack is written by Jess Pan, author of SORRY I’M LATE, I DIDN’T WANT TO COME, which is about the year she spent doing things that introverts like herself don’t usually want to do. After that project was over, she realized…
I wanted to be surrounded by books and book-y people and candles and coffee and soft music. I wanted to chat with people who lived in our area. I wanted to be part of a community….
This is all to say that…I work in that bookshop in London now.
I love following along as she writes about her friends (especially the one with the hot husband), her travels, and her criminal activities. Oh, and about working in a bookshop.
And now for the most famous bookshop on Substack:
Katie Clapham and her mom run Storytellers, Inc in Lancashire. Every Friday, Katie writes, in real time, about all the people who come in the bookshop.
Sometimes these people are customers. Sometimes not.
Often bookshop guests include her mom and/or grandma. Also, friends of her mom and/or grandma. Sometimes people come into the shop to deliver mail, ask to borrow rubber bands, drop off their used glasses, or try to sell her jorts or oddly sized self published books. You never know who you’ll meet in in Katie Clapham newsletter!
She also writes about the comments of passersby, the lack of milk/heat/paying customers in her shop, and all the new and upcoming books we should all buy.
It’s hilarious.
A lesson to teach: Receipt from the Classroom, Katie Clapham style
Inspired by Katie, I’m going to write a receipt from my classroom. I can’t write about every “customer,” as I have over 100 students, but here are some snippets from today:
6:49: I arrive at my classroom door carrying my purse, coffee, smoothie, lunch, and stack of books. A student is already there, sprawled out in front of my door. “You are late,” she accuses me. Once inside she (as usual) asks me for a mint, drops off her stuff, and scuttles off to find her friends in the school’s common area.
7:19: Class starts in one minute. There are only two students in my classroom, both sleeping.
8:30: I get an email from a parent of a sophomore. She says I’m her kid’s favorite teacher and asks if I can write a little note for the “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” book that she’s been having all his teachers sign since Kindergarten. My heart totally melts. I know you elementary teachers probably get emails like this all the time but we high school teachers almost never do. I try to write something sweet and funny with the hope that he’ll remember our classroom inside jokes in 2027 when he graduates.
9:30: I sit down with a group of students working on their final essay
Student #1: “Can I argue that Reconstruction failed because the Supreme Court sided with Virginia’s judges who refused to allow Black people in the jury pool?”
Student #2: “I think Reconstruction only partially failed because at least the Virginia judges were indicted for it. I mean at least some people were paying attention to the new 14th amendment.”
Student #3: “What is Reconstruction again?”
Student #4: “This is due tomorrow? Lets gooooo. I’m chilling bro. Ima do it later.”
Hallway discussion with a teacher about how we both bought cookie dough from French club students who are fundraising, but we just keep the cookie dough in the freezer in the staff room and snack on it between classes. Hopefully we won’t get salmonella.
11:00: Spoiler-alert: My answer to all the questions below is “no.”
“Can I go to my locker?”
“Can I go to my science class?”
“Can I go to the nurse?”
“Can I go to the office?”
Important Note: Half the school is at lunch during this time, hence everyone’s desire to get out of my class and hang out with their first-lunch friends.
I eat cookie dough
12:10: 5th period. These students insist on teaching me something before I teach them anything, so it’s time for my daily lesson on GenZ slang. Today’s word: OPPS.
Opps: Your enemies
12:45: Still 5th period. My sophomores are learning how in the world the horrors of the Holocaust could have ever happened. For any World History teachers out there, feel free to use this packet of primary and secondary sources/questions that cover:
German Propaganda in the 1930s
Hyperinflation and the German economy in the 1920s
Interviews from “But I was just following orders” guys
Bystanders
The Evian Conference
“Can you tell me what Javier’s grade is? Bro says he passing but I think he lying.”
1:30: “WillYouSignMyYearbook?” x 20 students. Nobody does any work except for Christina.
“Ms. P, don’t go looking through my yearbook! My friends wrote stuff in there that no teacher should see.”
I closed out the day by answering a frantic email from a counselor, asking if a student still has a chance to pass my class and graduate, despite her 84 absences and 28% grade in the class.
A book to read: Three Girls
Not only does Katie Clapham write Receipts from the Bookshop, she also writes books! I recently bought THREE GIRLS, which is about a trio of high school girls who become friends, bonding over their shared love of running.
Since I love running, high school vibes, and Katie Clapham writing, buying the book was a no-brainer, even though I had to order it from the UK and wait for it to be shipped across the pond. Why, oh why are so many of my favorite authors European?
The book is a pure delight. Watching (well, reading) the three girls become the most unlikely of friends held the drama of a love story. Will they get together? Or not?
First up is Alice, a non-athelet who randomly decides to do something she’s never done before: Go for a run.
It’s terrible, of course. Lungs on fire, side stitches, blisters from wearing the wrong shoes, etc. Because she’s Alice, she decides to try again the next day. And the next. After the first time she runs for twenty minutes straight: “I walk the rest of the way alone with my thoughts. My thoughts are mostly ‘I am awesome.’”
I too was a terrible yet dedicated runner in high school. I decided to join the track team as a freshman and it took me the whole season to be able to complete the half-mile warm up. I signed on as a jumper because that required the least amount of runner. I probably set records for the shortest jumps in school history.
And then, somehow, cross-country and track became my entire life in high school. I’ll be forever grateful for all that running has given me, but that doesn’t mean I forgot about how hard it was in the beginning.
So back to the book. Along with the heart warming friendship story, the relateable running woes, and lol dialogue, I also love reading a high school book set in Britain. Characters wear sports kits and trainers! They eat jaffa cakes and Maltesers and throw rubbish in bins! I don’t know what form rooms are or what Chrimbo means though. Also, there is a lot of discussion about netball. What is netball1?
Fantastic book! Katie Clapham totally smashed it :)
Happy teaching, reading, and (imaginarily) traveling! See y’all next Sunday.
Affiliate book links in this newsletter are through Bookshop, a book-buying platform that gives independent bookstores tools to compete online and maintain their presence in local communities. If you purchase books via the links in this newsletter, you’ll be financially supporting me AND your local independent bookstore, so thank you!
I’d incorrectly assumed volleyball, but I looked it up. Netball is more like basketball.
Loved every bit of this! Bookshop stalking, Receipt from the Classroom, including the packet you included which I'll peruse for some info that fits into The Dictograph Case. Thanks for a fun and informative read on a Sunday morning!
It's so fun to go through your day like this! And yes to British books set in school, such a fun escape.