Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores

I'd never heard of Jen Campbell, a poet and bookseller from the UK who apparently maintains a blog chronicling all the strange requests that she and other booksellers receive, in the course of their duties, until a friend reviewed this hilarious little collection of vignettes (thanks, Lisa!), but now that I have, and I've read through Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops, I feel that she is a true kindred spirit! Continuously employed in one bookstore or another (save for a few months interruption here and there) for more than twenty years, since the day I got my first after-school job at age fourteen - it was at a little chain bookstore in the local shopping mall - I think it's safe to say that I am intimately acquainted with the show more geography of absurdity that Campbell maps out here. I found myself giggling, snortling (that's midway between a snort and a chortle), and laughing out loud last night on my commute home, as I raced through this book, which is full to the brim with amusing encounters that were all too familiar to me.

I too have had endless variations on the "Do you sell...?" question - toilet seats being one of the more memorable examples - have been asked if it would be OK if a customer photocopied a book and then returned it - and been confronted, after giving a negative response, with: "but how will you know? I could just do it and not tell you!" - and have had to deal with over-indulgent and/or clueless parents, seemingly incapable of understanding that their little darlings aren't allowed to throw books on the floor and stomp all over them, climb the shelves, or (in the case of infants) chew on them. I too have gotten the classic "I'm looking for a book - it's about life, or something... and it has a green cover. Do you know the one I mean?" type-question, and have had my knowledge exploited by members of the public with no intention of actually giving us their business - people who want the service provided by a live bookseller, in helping them to make a selection, which they will then purchase from amazon, or some other online retailer.

I've worked in small and large bookshops, chain stores and independent, new and used books, and the results are invariably the same, because people are the same. They're weird - very weird. Some highlights of my own experience:

1. One week into working at a large chain bookstore located a few blocks from a well-known psychiatric hospital, I get a phone-call from a concerned doctor, asking if I have seen her patient in the store. "He's not really allowed out of the hospital," she says... There's also the hilarious - and true - tale of a co-worker who had to participate in a therapy session with a patient and customer from this same hospital, but that's a long story...suffice it to say, booksellers: don't be flip, because you never know who you're dealing with.

2. Working at a small independent bookstore in my college town, I answer the phone: "Good afternoon, Such-and-Such Bookstore, how may I help you?" and received the following reply: "Uh... yeah. So, um... do you sell books there?" My (unspoken) response being: "Yes, but they aren't going to be of much help to you..."

3. Working at a small chain bookstore in a mall, I help a distracted and very rushed customer, intent on finding something for her child to use in a school book report:

Customer: "I need something for my daughter's book report for history class. It needs to be on an explorer from the 18th century. Someone like Vasco de Gama. Or Neil Armstrong."
Me: "Did you say 18th century...?"
Customer: "Or it could be about one of those 19th century wars... you know, World War II. Or that one before it - the one with the helmets.
Me: "Did you say 19th century...?"

4. Working at a large independent bookstore in Manhattan, I am accused of racism, for describing myself as white. The scenario runs as follows: having helped a particularly difficult customer for more than twenty minutes (I must have put at least ten books in her hand, each of which proved unsatisfactory), I am accused of being deliberately unhelpful. This is the same customer who had previously told a co-worker that it was clear she had never been to college, because she was so stupid. Near the end of my patience, I said:

Me: I'm sorry that you're not pleased with the books we have in stock. We are a used bookstore, so I'm afraid we don't always have every title available....
Customer (interrupting): maybe if you made an effort, rather than offered excuses! You're not very professional in this store, are you? What's your name? I'm going to complain to the owner about you!
Me: By all means. The managers' desk is around the corner. Tell them it's Abigail in the Children's Department - the white Abigail. (I happened to have a co-worker, also named Abigail, also working in the Children's Department, who was black)
Customer (drawing herself up in indignation): White!?! I don't think in those terms! You are clearly a racist!

Yes. You really couldn't make this stuff up if you tried... show less

Do you work with the public as a booksellers, librarian or through another bookish profession? If so, I can almost guarantee you'll love this hysterical collection of interactions between booksellers and their customers. Ranging from a slightly mangled book title to the craziest "What were you thinking???" encounters, the stories had this librarian chuckling, nodding in recognition and sometimes laughing out loud. Now I have to read the sequel!

Things from this book I actually heard while working at a bookstore:

"Where's your true fiction section?"

(To this day I have no idea what the person meant.)

"You must get so much time to read, just sitting here surrounded by books."

(I once had a customer assume I'd read everything in the store. It was a relatively small bookstore rather than one of the big chains, but still -- not cool to be indignant that I haven't read every title we stock.)

"I'm looking for a book for my son. He's only seven but he's so advanced; it's like he has the brain of a twenty-year-old. What would you recommend?"

(Proud parents and grandparents always come in looking for books for a child of a certain age -- but said child is, of course, so gifted that he needs show more something much more intellectual than the idiotic stuff kids his age usually read. Ugh. Don't get me started on the woman who insisted her eight-year-old granddaughter only ever read Shakespeare. I wanted to ask what this little girl thought of the scene where Othello thinks his wife is cheating on him, so he starts talking to her as if he's her pimp.)

Bookseller: Could you put that cigarette out, please?
Man: Why?

(The guy I called out on this one didn't actually question me, and he had the good grace to look sheepish. But he also clearly thought nobody would notice he was smoking in a bloody bookstore if he held his cigarette very discreetly. Apparently bookstore clerks have no sense of smell. But that's okay, because it's not as if we're surrounded by merchandise that's practically begging to catch on fire. Good thing paper doesn't absorb odors, and bookcovers are only improved by the occasional sprinkle of ash!)

Things from this book I wish I'd heard while working at a bookstore:

"Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?"

"I've got a while before my bus. Are you and any of the other customers interested in playing cards?"

Parent speaking to a misbehaving child: "There should be no yelling unless someone is on fire!"
Child: "What if a weasel is robbing the store?"


You don't have to have worked at a bookstore to love this book. But you do need to love books. And you have to blush if you're one of the people who's ever walked into a bookstore looking for a particular book -- but you don't remember the title, or the author, or exactly what the book's about. But you think it might have a blue cover. (This has come up for every bookseller and librarian I've ever met.)

Oh, and I'd like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to the woman who got mad at me because she couldn't remember the title of the book she wanted or the author's last name, but she did know the author's first name, and why couldn't we alphabetize our books that way for a change? show less

I was looking for something to read last night after finishing Notes from a Public Typewriter and found this in my stacks. I have no recollection of buying it. In fact, not only was I prepared to swear I didn't have it, I actually did say, not 48 hours ago, that I didn't have a copy. Excellent organisation skills I have, no?

Anyhoo... this was just the thing after reading Notes from a Public Typewriter - it was a similar subject, but much lighter, funnier and absolutely not philosophical. I wavered between 3.5 and 4 stars because I'd have liked the collection to be a little longer.

A few of the many examples that
... made me chuckle:

Customer: Do you have Agatha Christie's Death in Denial?


... made me laugh out loud:

Customer: Oh look, show more they've got a section on dictionaries. Perhaps we should get your brother one for school, for Spanish, what do you think?

Her daughter: Can we get one for when we go to Scotland for our holidays?

Customer: They talk English in Scotland, too, sweetie.


... made me rage:

Customer: I'm just going to nip to the supermarket to do the weekly shop. I'm going to leave my sons here, is that ok? They're 3 and 5. They're no bother.

and

Customer (holding up a copy of a Harry Potter book): This doesn't have anything ... weird in it does it?
Bookseller: You mean, like, werewolves?
Customer: No, (whispers) - gays.
Bookseller: ...right.

A quick, easy and enjoyable read. show less

Este libro tuvo algunas "conversaciones"muy graciosas, realmente me daban ganas de ahorcar a algunos de los clientes y pues dado que una de las cosas que quería lograr algun día es tener una libreria esto me hizó pensar que mejor me prepare porque la gente es muuuy rara.

Plenamente anecdótico hay algunas cosas que son muy creíbles y que he conocido gente que lo ha hecho, pero también otras son muy bizarras y dudo un poco (sólo un poco) de sí habrán pasado.

Una buena lectura para descansar la mente.


Librero: ¿Diga?

Cliente: ¿Qué tal? Quería ver sí podéis ayudarme. Estoy buscando un libro para mi sobrina. Tiene seis años y no sé que comprarle

Librero: Por supuesto ¿Qué tipo de cosasle gustan?

Cliente: La verdad es que no lo show more sé. No la veo muy a menudo, mi hermana vive fuera del país

Librero: Vale ¿Cómo se llama?

Cliente: Sophie

Librero: Pues...¿Conoce la serie Sophie de Dick King Smith? Hasta hay un libro que se título Sophie hits six.

Cliente: Perfecto. Suena bien

Librero: ¿Quiere que comprube si hay ejemplares? Estoy casi seguro de que quedan algunos

Cliente: No, no os preopcupéis. Ya lo pediré por internet.

Librero: Pero...se lo acabamos de recomendar nosotros

Cliente:Y os lo agradezco. Es una pena que Amazon no tenga una persona con quien hablar de estas cosas. Pero al menos puedo contar con vosotros. show less

This is a brilliant new collection of strange requests and customer gaffes from the world of bookselling. Split into three sections, Jen has covered her time at the Edinburgh Bookshop and Ripping Yarns in London (where she currently works), as well as collecting crackers from other booksellers all over the world for the third section, 'Weird Things Customers Say in Other Bookshops'.

I've already read my copy cover to cover, and it is simultaneously hilarious and a little bit tragic. The illustrations, by The Brothers McLeod, are the icing on the cake. You definitely don't need to be a bookseller to appreciate the humour - just a love of books, I think! A couple of my favourite gems from the book, just to give you a flavour:

~ CUSTOMER: Do show more you have any books by Jane Eyre?

**********

~ CUSTOMER: Doesn't it bother you, being surrounded by books all day? I think I'd be paranoid they were all going to jump off the shelves and kill me.
BOOKSELLER: . . .

**********

~ CUSTOMER: Do you stock Nigella Lawson under 'Sex' or 'Cookery'?

**********

~ CHILD: Mum, look, it's the book of A Hundred and One Dalmatians. Can I get a hundred and one puppies?
CHILD'S MOTHER: No, dear, you've already got a hamster. That's quite enough.

**********

Are you smiling already? Well, good! Go buy a copy! And remember - be nice to your friendly local bookseller. You never know who's listening... ;) show less

This book came to be written because a bookseller once blogged many of the surprising things her customers used to say while in her store. Readers of the blog convinced her to put her experiences in a book along with the experiences of other booksellers. All of the entries in this book, if not from the author’s store, are identified.

This book is great. Parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny. Others are just jaw-dropping in revealing how ignorant some people can be. The drawings by Greg McLeod are hilarious! This quick-to-read book makes for wonderful entertainment!