![]() ![]() It is strangely flattering – and professionally inspiring, a bit like being a literary bloodhound – that people think we can produce the book from that, and I guess it works, because what really surprises me is how often you can, with a little gentle questioning (people usually know more than they think) and some lateral thinking, actually identify the book that is wanted. You will all have heard about the customer who knows what colour a book is, declares they know little else and they want it right now – this is not a joke, it happens a couple of times a year (oddly, in my experience, usually green books rather than any other colour). Campbell, a longtime book-gal, started writing down these charming and bamboozling verbal treasures and putting them on her blog, then other booksellers from all over the world added their snippets – to create an affectionate, wryly and gently amused take on the symbiotic relationship between bookshoppers and booksellers. ![]() So, we particularly like Jen Campbell’s collection Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Constable), a collection of the odd, wonderful and often jaw-dropping things that people say or ask in their local bookshops. ![]() Working in a bookshop is fascinating: frequently joyful, always interesting and sometimes, well, just really weird – and while deeply pleasurable, never quite as ‘relaxing’ as the people who tell us “I have always wanted to work in a bookshop, it is so relaxing” seem to think! ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |