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.