Category: bookshop

Christmas in the bookshop, ooh what larks. Trolleys heaving with yet more stock, Dr Who mugs and gizmo’s bleeping and whirring, piles of gift sets to stack somewhere, and customers, blooming hundreds of them.
This was the weekend after the work “Do” so most staff muttered apologies about being shit faced or denied any memory of the event at all. The uber bookish management colleague who transformed herself from nerd to shouty slut in the manner of a filmic librarian taking off her glasses and unpinning her hair was the funniest. She asked if I could remember much and I replied that yes, I am blessed with total recall and then watched her squirm. Not only was she flirtatious to the point of sexual harassment, she was also incredibly rude about some of our colleagues. This coupled with her heckling and dictatorial approach to a Christmas Party has made her the talk of the store. Ho hum.

CUSTOMERS

A woman asked a colleague for a book on camp-fire cookery. My colleague was chuffed to recall just such a book, and quickly plucked “Campfire cookery” from the shelf.
“No,” said the woman “That’s not the sort of thing I’m after.”

A man asked me for suggestions for his eight year old niece. (My bright red top emblazoned with an invitation to ask me to help you choose a perfect present is working a treat.) He wondered if Harry Potter was suitable. I explained that the writing is a bit dense and that eight year old readers could manage the words but would perhaps struggle with the amount per page and the tiny text. I do know a bit about eight year olds as I have two of them myself and have spent a year teaching 2 classes of eight year olds how to read plus of course I have, 7 years experience selling books. I offered him 10 alternative titles which he exclaimed happily about before, yup, buying Harry P and only Harry P. Le sigh.

I did have the perfect customer though who asked for contemporary literary recommendations and bought all that I suggested. Jeez I felt triumphant.

To any of you who are pondering a gift for a friend or lover I must recommend once again Andrew Kaufman’s “All my friends are superheroes”…seriously you can’t go wrong with it.
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=5002543

A middle aged couple came to the counter with three books. They were all of the “How to pleasure your woman” variety. I scan and bag as professionally as always. It would be unseemly to allow even a flicker of acknowledgement to cross my face. I want people to feel comfortable buying whatever they want.

Don’t for one moment think that I haven’t noticed though, I notice every single title I sell. And yes, I do judge people on their purchases. It’s wrong, but I do it, and so do all the other book sellers I know.

When we put a Dan Brown in a bag, we pity you for your lack of taste. When the generic thug lite guys come in and buy their books on football hooliganism and gangster porn, we mock. When the spotty, greasy boys buy the 2nd part of some improbable futuristic trilogy we honestly don’t give a shit about it, but will smile politely as you bore away a few of our minutes raving about how great it is.

Please don’t recommend your favourites to me, I don’t care. If you want me to recommend to you I am happy to do so. I am never as pleased as when somebody asks my opinion, which I will always offer truthfully. So yeah, sorry to the guy who was rather surprised by my horror when he attempted to pick good quality fiction for young girls and I made him put back all the ones he had so far chosen. I am sure though that the titles he did purchase will be appreciated more. Just because a cover is pink and has a bit of glitter on does not mean that a girl will love it. Similarly putting a dragon or a football on the cover of a boys book does not guarantee enjoyment or quality.

I feel sorry for everyone who buys a self help book along the lines of “How to win the heart of that twunt.” I feel sad for anyone buying a book about dealing with a disease. I haven’t heard of most sports men and women, so sorry for the blank looks when asked for “…that book on Gary Tillitt, you know?” Nope, I don’t. Oh, he once played football for QPR in the seventies zzzzzzzzz.

I think that most people who buy true crime books are voyeuristic creeps. (Even though in the past I have read one or two and am exempt from the creep accusation, as is anyone I know and like.)

I like all poetry purchases, because I am delighted to see people pay for it. Yeah, keep poetry alive, I don’t judge at all. Although you would get 1,000 bonus points for buying any Les Murray.
I don’t judge music books either, for some reason I think everyone should like anything and that’s cool. But whoo, biography is a mine field.
Anyone who buys Kerry Katona/Fran Cosgrave/Chantelle etc…fuck right off please.

There’s loads more prejudice, but I don’t have the time right now…

A man came in and asked my colleague to recommend a great crime book. She showed him several but he wasn’t keen. She sent him down to me on the fiction floor. He said he wanted something that was a big adventure, maybe crime, but not dull, it had to have everything.
I asked what he had read and enjoyed previously. He said Dan Brown. Sigh. I showed him Kate Mosse “Labyrinth” and said that whilst I haven’t read it myself it has been touted as the intelligent female version of “Da Vinci Code”. He held it and said “Maybe.”
Then I was inspired, and said “Ooh, I know…Kate Atkinson’s “Case Histories”. It’s a detective story, hugely enjoyable. It’s a page turner where you really want to know what happens, It’s an easy read, but extremely well written, I can recommend it without hesitation.”
He held that in his hands too.
Then he told me that actually he has never read a book written by a woman, and didn’t think he’d start now, but thanks. He handed the books back whilst I protested. He left.

A very snooty woman came over to me and said:
“I just want to know why a bookshop of this size does not stock work of such importance as unpronounceable foreign name.”
I said “Hmmm, let me check that out for you. How do you spell unpronounceable foreign name?”
“Well, I don’t know, surely you should?”
“Do you have a title?”
“No, but she was nominated for that big prize last year.”
“Which one?”
“Oh I don’t know. This is ridiculous.”

Would you believe that I found the book she was after? I triumphantly presented her with it.

“But it’s in hardback.”
“Yes, it was only published recently, and I don’t have a due date for the paperback.”
“I have read it in paperback.”
“Oh!” I check the computer, “There’s no record of it being available in paperback. Sorry.”
“Oh, this is stupid. Of course it’s in paperback, I read it in paperback.”

A man comes to the counter and asks for a book.

“I’m sorry but we don’t keep that title in stock. I could order it for you?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“We do ask for payment in advance.”
“What? WHAT! That’s not good enough. WHAT! You don’t have the book but you want me to pay you for it anyway?”
“Well, we have had to implement the payment in advance rule as so many people ordered books that we wouldn’t usually stock and then didn’t bother to come and buy them. We got stuck with…”
“I can’t believe this. It’s not good enough. How dare you ask me to pay. You can forget it. I won’t buy books here ever again…”
Man exits down the stairs still ranting. The next customer in line gives me a sweet little sympathy smile.

A middle aged man comes over to the counter with his ear clamped to a mobile phone. He hands me a book entitled “Schoolgirl lust.” I scan it, bag it and ask for the money. He says down the phone;
“In a bookshop. Just paying. Yes. Graham Greene.”

There are two men who regularly come into the bookshop. I feel sure that they are up to some mischief. They have that alcoholic sway thing happening, and they hang out by the art books. One wears an enormous jacket, no matter if it’s hot, the sour stench of him spreads throughout the entire shop floor. They choose maybe 10 books, and then go and sit at the table and chat and look at the books. The jacketed one takes his coat off and spreads it wide so that the table is obscured. They get up and stagger off. They return again and again throughout the day. I try and count the books on the table before and after they leave. I can’t tell if anything is missing. Our art books are security tagged, they never set off the alarms. Our security guard has watched them closely and can’t see that they are doing anything.
Could it be that they are two down on their luck street guys who need a regular fix of art?

2 young boys bought “Doing it” by Melvyn Burgess and could not hide their blushes, awwwww.

A dad brought in his 2 kids (aged 5 and 2ish). The 5 year old struck up an excited conversation with me about Art Attack and going into year 1 whilst the 2 year old opened up a gift box and extracted from within the rubber duck. He kept squeaking it and I said “Oh, you have our rubber duckie, I wondered what that sound was.” in a loud, bright voice designed to alert his dad to what was happening. I turned back to the counter to serve someone and when I looked round again the kid was standing (STANDING!) on 2 ducks. “Please don’t stand on my ducks” I said “They are still for sale.” I told his dad who didn’t even have the grace to apologise.

A huge man demanded that I recommend something amazing to him. I asked what sort of thing he liked and he said that was irrelevant, he wanted to know what I thought was brilliant as after all that was my job. I am delighted, and smug, to report that he left the store with 7 books!

There is a new temp at work. He checked on our computer for a book. The computer showed we had 2 in stock. He looked on the shelf before informing the customer that we had sold out. When the customer had moved away from the counter I quietly told him that if the computer showed more than 1 copy it was a fairly safe assumption that we did in fact have the book. No, he said, it’s not there. I checked the screen and informed him that as it was in our latest campaign it was probably on the ground floor. No, he replied, it won’t be, unless there are5 or 6 copies it won’t be downstairs. Jeez. I have, what, 7 years experience with this organisation and this boy has 3 weeks. Whatever, I’m a Saturday assistant now, I can’t be bothered. I carry on shelving some stuff but return to the till point in time to hear him say to the ground floor staff “Oh, you do, right, no, it doesn’t matter.”
He did say to me that he hoped never to be so stupid again. Tee, and indeed, hee.

In a bid to rival the very cool Bookseller to the Stars (his link is over there on the right, he’s good!) I would like to announce that today in the Bookshop by the Sea I served Preston and Chantelle. She giggled a lot and had bad hair. I assume they were with his parents and he was too busy chatting to his dad to do me the courtesy of saying thanks when I handed him his bag of books. Far far more amazingly an hour later Jordan aka Katie Price, Peter Andre and their children came in to the shop. I didn’t serve them myself, but did peek at them from behind a post! She obligingly posed for camera phone pics with some of our customers (taken by Mr Andre.) I believe they totaly trumped the earlier slebs. Katie P is tiny, and pretty, and Peter is actually quite handsome. Hurrah.

Ooh, we also got to see Barbara Windsor waving from a Pride float. What a day, almost like Heat magazine had come to life!

So a young (15 ish) guy all dressed in black with a smear of black eyeliner and a mop of hair shambled up to my till. He didn’t make eye contact once, but held out a Vampire book. I bagged it, and took his money. He handed me a £10 note with the word DIE written on in black marker pen. I thought it best not to make any comment, so bunged it in the till. I passed it on to a sweet old man. Do hope there was no voodoo mojo going on.