Formerly an ironmongers, independent bookshop Bloom and Curll is situated on 74 Colston Street. A literary escape that feels like home.

When did Bloom and Curll open and what made you choose its Colston Street location? 

I opened in 2006. Colston Street was, 25 years ago, where I got my first job in a futon-shop. I don’t think futon shops exist anymore? It was the 80s. I think I wore a Prince bandanna with Walkman earphones tucked beneath to the interview. So after living in London, Scotland and Wales for 20 years; on coming home, it was the first place I went back to. Surprisingly, some of the same residents and shopkeepers were still there, but none remembered me. For the first four years I lived in the shop, so was literally curling up beneath the History/Politics sections every night. For FOUR years. Not very romantic at all. 

What do you love about books? 

They attract an audience I like and it stops me from meeting the people I don’t like – everyone else. I was in Marseillaise last weekend renting a container and the women at the port control booth asked: ‘And what is your occupation?’ I lied. ‘I sell stories ad hoc,’ not knowing what that Latin phraseology meant, but hoping she didn’t either. ‘I’m like a literary pirate,’ I said. I thought this might make me seem more confident and interesting enough for her to want to go out for coffee and croissants, perhaps? ’You are the man with the books, yes?’ ‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Why?’ she said. I shrugged my shoulders and moved along, paying over the odds for an empty container.  

And how is it being an independent business in Bristol? Do you find there is support and do you enjoy working for yourself? 

There is support in that I love my neighbouring shopkeepers and residents.  We share tea-bags and tips, or rather fallacies on, ‘why is it so slow today?’ As if we haven’t had the same conversation yesterday, and will tomorrow and everyday, forever. Owning a small business is like being a weather-forecaster; you are constantly disappointed in your craft, but your subject is all you have. Sometimes I like to think I’m the new fish in a large industrial Mexican Pinta. My neighbours bring me camera stills and short notes they’re about to send to their lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends, mums and dads. They ask me to look them over for grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, the use of colour, or more importantly – tone. That makes me happy. I enjoy that.

What’s the future for Bloom and Curll? 

Off to Cuba in January for a reconnaissance holiday and then, hopefully, in two years’ time I can ship the whole shop out.