I'm not asking you to buy them. I'm just asking you to give me money in exchange for them.

Extremely common interactions here at NIOLIT:

We buy books only on a certain day between certain hours, but we're almost always willing to make exceptions for time as long as it's on the correct day (if you bring them in five minutes to closing,* however, you'll still be out of luck). This information is available through our website, on our facebook, on our bookmarks, and if you ask us over the phone.  All the same, this happens at least once daily:

Customer: "I've got these books for sale."

Staff member: "I'm afraid we only buy books [day of week, hours]."

C: "But I brought my books all the way here!"

S: "But we're not buying books today. I'm not even a book buyer.  I'm happy to give you a list of other bookshops that buy books."

C: Could you at least take a look at them?

By "take a look at them," Dear Readers, the customer means, of course, that you appraise their books, tell them how much you would be willing to pay for them, and then exchange that cash amount for their books.

How precisely they believe this to be different from the book-buying that we explicitly stated multiple times we are unable to do, I am unaware.

* Also common, and, I'm aware, certainly not only to the bookselling business:

Customer comes up right as one is closing the door.

Staff: "I'm afraid we're just closing, but we'll be open tomorrow at ---."

Customer: "But I came all the way down here! Can't I just look around?"

I'm bewildered at the mistaken idea some people seem to harbour about what it means for an establishment to be closed.  Some people do seem to think that we close the doors, turn off the lights, and then sit in the dark, twiddling our thumbs and wishing desperately we had someone to talk to.
We don't live at the bookshop; most of us are as anxious to leave and get on with our lives as any other person is at the close of their work day.

I myself have one thus-far fail-safe response for customers who are particularly indignant about our refusal to stay open and serve them whenever they happen to be here: "I'm sorry, but I need to get home to my children.  Their babysitter absolutely must leave at X:XX and if I'm late my children will be all alone."

This is a complete falsehood, as I've never had any children, but since I don't think my reproductive status is either any of the public's business or relevant to whether or not I deserve to have a life, I have no moral qualms with employing it when necessary.  Any of my comrades-in-retail are welcome to it, should they need it.  If you happen to be male, it will probably be doubly effective in silencing your interlocutor, as men who take parenting seriously are generally regarded as heroes.

B-O-O-K-S spells "Public Toilet"

Yesterday an older couple (husband & wife, presumably) came into the Institute and, shortly, the wife approached the counter to ask politely if we had a restroom.

pictured: ambiguity

We responded-- politely-- that we're afraid we don't have a public restroom, but directed her to one close by.  We overheard her tell her husband, "They don't have a restroom here, we need to go next door."

But her husband was on to us.  He knew the problem.  She just hadn't asked penisfully enough.

"Where is your restroom?" he bellowed at us.

Despite the misleading sign immediately next to the front door at eye-level stating that we have no restroom, we do not, in fact, have a public restroom.  We reiterated this to him.

"I'M NOT THE PUBLIC, I'M A CUSTOMER."

This is a common sentiment amongst our visitors at NIOLIT: 
I am NOT the public.  How dare you imply that I'm merely part of the vulgar horde? 

I am always tempted to inquire in return: When you buy a ticket to the opera [as I'm sure you frequently do], do you go bursting into the dressing rooms while insisting you're not the public?

I blame the major book chains, which inevitably feature some chain coffee-shop (Starbucks, Peet's, &c) in miniature.  According to state law, all establishments which serve food or drink must provide customers with a restroom.  Customers who are used to frequenting the chain stores, then, associate book shops (and their coffee corners) with toilets.  

"What kind of coffee do you do?"

We do not vend coffee.  We are under no obligation to provide you with a facility for excreting.  You'll just have to pee-pee before you leave the house like a big boy next time.

Your pun is bad and you should feel bad.

Any writer who succumbs to the unfathomable laziness and bad taste of using the pun "purr-fect" when describing any cat-related book or story should be garroted with barbed wire.

Really, New Yorker?

Really?

Related to the previous post...

Customer: "Do you have any books on [----]?"

Staff: "Is there a specific title or author that you had in mind that I can look for?"

C: "No.  I just want to know what you have on [----]."

S: "Unless you have a specific book or books that you're looking for, I don't really have anything to go on."

C: "Just go look in the [----] section and tell me what you have on [----]."


Gentle readers:  Perhaps I shouldn't divulge such industry secrets, but....

I'm putting you on hold, checking my email, and freshening my coffee, then picking up and telling you we don't have anything on [----].  Tens of thousands of books in stock, which I simply can't scour and jot down every possibly relevant title / author while the till goes unattended.  We can't.

Where is your section for graphic novel adaptations of the juvenilia of postmodern Chilean authors who write magical realism?

Customer: "Where is your non-fiction section?"

Staff member: "We don't have a general non-fiction section; it's separated into genres like history, political science, psychology, &c.  Was there a particular title you were looking for?"

Customer: "The Hunger Games."

On the flip side:

"I'm looking for books on the philosophy of trains during WWII."

And

"What do you have on the history of the peace symbol?"

Both actual requests, and neither had a specific title or author.

...

Flatteringly, patrons are occasionally surprised by the lack of omniscience amongst our booksellers.  Far and away the easiest way for us to help you track down a book is a title.  While certain authors will always end up in a certain section, others write on a variety of subjects and therefore could be shelved in half a dozen different places.  Jo Nesbø, for example, we can send you to the mystery section fairly reliably*.  Rebecca Solnit, on the other hand, could be found in memoir, political science, women's studies, travel literature, or history.  While we are an independent bookseller, we still have tens of thousands of books; also, we don't have the space or the time to shelve them into ridiculously concise subgenres.  If you really want the 16th-century proto-Marxist writings of schizophrenic lesbian Hieronymite nuns in the Canary Islands, you have to throw us a fucking bone.

So please, Gentle Readers, help your bookseller help you.  We do appreciate your decision to patronise your local bookshop instead of the cheap & lazy option of buying from Evil Unnamed Internet Giants, but we are only underpaid mortals.  If you are not prepared to browse the shelves yourselves, please come with one or two particular titles so we can at least figure out how to point you in the right direction.


*Well... you could be looking for his "Fart Powder" series (Children's Lit).

No Nicholas Sparks? You must be illiterate.

Customer: "Is this book okay to read if I haven't read the first book in the series?" [holds up teenage paranormal fiction--not this particular scholar's area of expertise].

Staff member: "Unfortunately, I haven't read that series.  I'm sorry.  But I do imagine it's better if you start with the first book."

C: "What about this? Is this any good?"  [holds up a Nicholas Sparks title].

S: "I haven't read that either, I'm afraid."

C: [snottily] "Well, what do you DO with your time?!"

Not read Nicholas Sparks.

A common misconception about life in the bookselling business seems to be that, when not engaged in assisting patrons, the scholars of the Institute are free to sit around reading the stock.  I would like to take this opportunity to disillusion the gentle public.  While all of us here love to read, we are not encouraged to indulge in that particular pleasure while on the job any more than workers in any other line of retail, or indeed, any business outside of academia.  In addition to helping patrons physically present, there are phone calls to take and emails to answer.  The shelves need more constant and thorough attention than our inadequate staff can possibly provide since, despite our cheerful willingness to take unwanted books back at the front counter, customers do insist on stuffing them haphazardly in the oddest places.  Stock needs to be received, processed, priced, shelved, and re-shelved.  We sell online and ship internationally. In short, there is always some actual work to be done.
And in our free time, we have preferences in reading material that may not align with yours.  I, for example, read mostly modern non-fiction with an emphasis on Victorian Europe and the history of medicine, and a little classic French and British literature.  I have never read a Nicholas Sparks book.  I probably never will.

Another common misconception is that a bookshop is the same thing as a library.  We receive requests for library cards and queries about whether we're willing to sell the books with a rather startling frequency.  I have no explanation for that particular myth, as many of the inquirers are old enough to remember a time when the Internet was not the great Source of All Things.

Perhaps a book on dowsing.

"Excuse me--I'm psychic, so I should know this, but where is your tarot section?"

If Fanny Clapp married Eric Hiscock....

We not infrequently come across some unintentionally hilarious names in the course of our work here at the Institute.  None of them is as notable as the [in]famous Dr Taco BM Monster, perhaps, but they merited some minor sniggering.  I'll leave out the names of patrons for discretion's sake, but here are some of our favourite author and editor names presented for your enjoyment.

Mack A. Player

Fanny Clapp

Edwin G. Boring

Yu. P. Raizer  (I don't, but it sounds painful!)

A. Dyck

C.A.R. Hoare

Daniel Pedoe

Eric C. Hiscock

Poopa Dweck

B.A. Fuchs

International Money and Finance, by Ronald McDonald  (that explains a lot about the economy)

I'm sorry, authors.  It's jejune.  You have possibly suffered much for your names in the past, but I hope you will not be so bitter as to deny the small, if puerile, joy that your names give me and my fellow scholars here at the Institute.

--CL