A book comes to the counter with its spine gone and the boards still in a person’s hands. Sometimes the cloth has split along the joint. Sometimes the spine is a loose piece of paper in the same bag as the book. The pages are usually fine. What failed is the part that holds the book as one object when you open it. We have done this work in the back room since 2016, which is when Tomasz Wilk set up the bindery bench. The repair is called spine re-backing. It costs £18 a book, and it takes about ten working days.
Re-backing means the spine is made again, so the book you already have can be read without shedding its covers. It is not a new binding of the whole book, and it is not a cleaning, and it is not a valuation. Those are different conversations. The one we price at £18 is the spine. Tomasz works at the bench in the back room, with the tools of that bench, and the book stays there until the ten working days are up. You do not have to know the names of the tools to leave a book with him. You do have to leave the book.
The practical path is short. Bring it in on a day the shop is open. Tuesday to Friday that is 10:00 to 19:00. Saturday the shop is open 10:00 to 21:00, because the reading runs in the evening. Sunday is 12:00 to 17:00. Monday is closed. Tell whoever is at the counter that you want the spine re-backed, and ask for Tomasz Wilk if you want to talk to him about that copy. The £18 is per book. Two books are two repairs. We will say at the counter if what you have brought is not a spine job. We would rather say so then than invent a second service we do not list.
The back room is not only a bench. Callum Reid has bought the second-hand and rare books since 2011, and they live on the shelves around the bench. On Saturday the same room becomes the reading room. Amara Osei hosts. The doors for the evening open at 19:00, someone reads from 19:30 to 20:30, there are thirty seats, and a seat is £5, taken off any book bought that evening. A book that is in the middle of a repair is not part of that evening. It stays on the bench. The room is simply small enough that both things are true of it: it sells the old books, and it mends a few of them, and once a week it listens to someone read.
People bring different kinds of copies. A second-hand book that has already lived a long time. A book bought new from Hanna Moreau’s front table, read hard, and split at the joint. A book from home that is not one we sold at all. The price does not change with the story. Spine re-backing is £18, about ten working days, in the back room. If you are unsure the book should be mended, Thursday is the day to ask a different question. Second-hand valuation is free, by appointment. Callum looks at what you have brought. We buy, or we tell you where it should go. A valuation is not a down payment on a repair, and a repair is not a promise that we will buy the book afterwards. They are neighbours on the price list, and they stay separate.
The shop around the bench is the same shop as the front room. Hanna and Callum opened it in 2011 with one room, and the back room came in 2015 with the first Saturday reading. The bench followed in 2016. Lucía Ferrer’s children’s shelves and the story hour came in 2018. The shelf subscription came in 2019, £24 a month, chosen by the 5th and ready by the 10th. Elin Sørensen came in 2021 for Saturdays and the poetry shelves. In 2026 there are about 9,000 books at 27 Calder Lane. The repair work is a thin strand in that, on purpose. We mend the spine we say we mend. We do not take in every harm that can happen to a book, and we do not keep a public tally of how many spines have been put back.
If you want the work done, bring the book to 27 Calder Lane, Edinburgh EH9 1PQ, or phone +44 131 555 0127 and ask for the bench. Email hello@shioribooks.example if you would rather write first and say what the book is. When the ten working days are done, we will have it ready to collect. You pay £18, and you take your own book home with a spine that holds. That is the whole of the service, and it is enough.