Best on a rainy day

There is always a voice in the back of a readers head that, on a rainy/ devil powdery (snowy) day, when you look outside, it screams in bloody jubilee at the prospect of blankets, tea/cocoa, and fluffy chair sitting happiness that can only be brought on by diving head first into print.
Yes, the rainy day. Every bookie's ideal day. Some times it is important to go outside and splash around after reading really uplifting poetry or watching "Singing in the Rain" (because lets face it, if you love books and you are carbon based, you love that movie). But in general, it is the best weather for a book. Any book. You could have a sudden urge to grab that copy of "Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization" that your mother in law got you a few birthdays ago. (Real book. Look it up. Not a bad read.)  Whatever the case, rain + books= ahhhhhhhhhhh yeeeaaaaaaaaaa. (Snow depends on how much you hate it. Snowy days makes me want to make a blanket fort and hide for days).
Now, I have established that little voice inside your head, that sees the rain or smells the petrichor (look it up) and goes insane with paperback fanaticism. Why then, is it, that on a rainy day, I can go HOURS and HOURS without seeing a single soul in to purchase the object of their next mild obsession?
The point of this post, rainy days + book store = an unnecessary amount of dusting/ alphabetizing. Not only that, we also see and smell the rain. And so we also have a maddening desire to tear into the nearest novel. So we spend our time organizing, and dusting, and re-organizing, and re-dusting, and OH THERE'S A CUSTOMER, and dusting one more time (just in case).
And then there are the times when we finally accept that if we dust anymore, we will become lemon scented for the rest of our lives, and we have also memorized the YA section on accident. At this point we have two options: meander aimlessly to make it appear like we have some eloquent book-selling task at hand, or we can stand at the front desk and try and research more books to recommend.
Now it may be different for other indie bookstores, but at mine, we unfortunately don't have a very loud radio. So, if you are far enough away from it, there is a persistent hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm coming from one of our lights...
Torture I tell you. Torture.
And then, unfortunately, we attack the next customer with frantic zeal because here is a living person to commune with.
So, what we should all have learned from this is, customers of any local bookstore, make sure you do your booksellers a favor and next time it rains and you have a spare minute or two, pop in to chat, as we love a good chat.

Poem #1

In light of my poetry class (yes I am still in school), I have decided to share every now and then things that I have written, most to shake things up a bit.
We were asked to write 10 lines in Iambic Pentameter on death, which this isn't even close. Really it's only ten lines and about death (yes, morbid. But an assignment is an assignment). So I only slightly fail, but also win at the same time.

When I fall, it will be to child's laughter.
My moiste and dry, empty skin will litter
an unwarry field or yard for here after.
But my fall may force souls to embitter.

Why waste my verdant complection on death?
Just when a rose colors me do I court dread.
I will fall at the kiss of frozen breath
and signal, during flight, that decay will spread.

My family will follow soon on this yearly decent
and others will celbrate this morbid event.

Inspirational Parent for the Win

Me: "Will this be all today?"

Customer: "Yes, thank you. You have a wonderful bookstore."

Me: "Thanks. We try."

Customer's Husband: "Wait! Get this too!"
(Hyper warp speed run up and Micheal Jordan slam dunk of a book of Celtic lyrical poetry straight onto the counter followed by a look of deep satisfaction on the face of said slam-dunker.)

Customer: "Okay. Can we get this as well?"

Me: "Of course!"

Customer Husband: "Great!" (turns and looks at young girl child who is also with them. And by "young girl child" I mean 10-12 yr old.) "You are going to read this to me while we drive!" (Beaming smile).

Young Girl Child: "What? Why! I wanted to read the new Percy Jackson!" (Now a beaming smile from yours truly).

Customer Husband: "Because it's poetry, and you need to know how to read it."

Young girl child: "But why? It's just poetry."

Customer Husband: "Nope. Poetry is never just poetry. You are going to read it to me, while we drive."

Young girl child: " :( "

Customer Husband: "Come on! It will be good for you! Like eating brussel sprouts!"

Young girl child: (look of terror)

Customer/Customer husband: "Thanks again! This really is a great bookstore!"

Me: "No problem! Thanks for coming in."


Moral of the story.
While I have never had brussel sprouts, I have had yams (hold on a second, it has meaning). Growing up, I hated yams. Sweet potatoes? Potatoes shouldn't be sweet. They should be buttery and mashed.  So obviously, I avoided them at all cost.
Then the magical day came when I actually tried them. (Yes, I was the kid who hated foods I had never tasted.) So, i realized that yams, with a little cinnamon, lots of sugar, can be pretty awesome. (No marshmallows though. That's sacrilege.)  
Poetry, is the same thing. You need to find the kind with your topping on it. You can find some spicy cinnamon poetry, or some gooey marshmallow poetry, some bitter, strong poetry with nothing added at all. So the moral is, try poetry cause it's good for you, listen to your parents, and it is never to late to buy another book.

Scent of booksellers nationwide

Common question: "Do you read when you're alone in the store?"
Common statement: "I could never work here. I would be reading constantly."
These statements are often followed by an uncertain, knee-jerk laugh from the customer, and a ragingly witty comment from yours truly. And this logic makes sense. I love books, I am constantly reading, and I am literally surrounded by thousands of books. It would be so easy to LOSE MYSELF IN A BOOK FOR A FEW HOURS AND BECOME INCREDIBLY HOSTILE TOWARDS CUSTOMERS WHO INTERRUPT ME WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOST RECENT VEGAN COOKBOOK.... All of this taking place in the most amazing pillow fort ever imagined.
So no... sadly I don't read on the job. Sometimes I'll pick up a interesting looking book and flip through it to get a generalized feel so if I get asked about it, I can say something other than, "Nice cover."

So I would like to introduce you to a booksellers best friend and worst enemy. It's used constantly because it is constantly needed. If there is nothing else to do, or even if there is other stuff you could be doing, this usually takes precedence.
I give you.... PLEDGE!

Now you may be thinking "Eh?" 

I understand. Pledge? That's weird. Isn't that for.... dusting?

Why yes. Yes it is.

Dusting! Books are dust magnets. Dusting the whole store, once a day, is usually not enough. As soon as you're done, it's dusty again. EVERYWHERE. It's even worse if the books are near a door that leads outside. 

So basically, pledge could pretty much be the "natural scent" of booksellers everywhere. Lemony, burns the eyes a little, stays on your cloths for days. Try it, love it, crave it. 

Illustration of the Week

    Here is my tribute to Brett Helquist, my favorite illustrator. Just me, typing a new something or other on my trusty green typewriter "Remington". More illustrations next week!

The Compendium Illusion

    There is a phenomenon in the bookseller world that occurs that I like to call the Compendium Illusion. The basis is simple: We as booksellers should know everything about every book everywhere twice. That's how we get questions like,"So I'm looking for a book. I saw it on an airplane and it had a red flower on the cover, or maybe the cover was just red, but it looked like it could be a flower. Do you have that?" (It ended up being "Devil May Care" by Sebastian Faulks).
    So while I am standing there, dumbfounded, trying to mentally search all books I can think of that either have flowers on them or are red, or possibly both, and coming up with both 100s of options as well as none at all, the customer is frustrated that it's taking longer than the 3 seconds it would take to refresh an Instagram page they want to be looking at. After that, I do some fancy searching on my handy dandy inventory system, and poof, book. While there are very few instances in which a book is not identified as being on this plain of existence I would like to iterate one thing...
    Don't believe in the Compendium Illusion.
    As much as I would like to think that I can recall with perfect accuracy the large number of books I have read, the sad truth is I can't remember the authors of a large majority of them. Another section of the ones I can remember, I can't pronounce anyways.Example: I was nearly slapped by a fellow employee because I said Proust as 'Pra-ow-st' and Camus as 'Cam-us' (which actually makes sense except... you know... french.)
   It also isn't as thought we don't know any books at all. Sometimes we just have no idea what you're talking about. At the same time, we can suggest 12 different books that you might not have ever heard of and very soon could never live without. Power.
    The point being is that I  love it when you educate me as well. I love hearing what readers are saying, what they like, what they hated, what they wished had changed, and what changed them. I love hearing about that one time you tried reading a YA novel on a dare and now own the whole series in autographed hard cover.
    I don't have all the answers, though am trying really, really, really hard to get to point that I do.
    Now I have realized that the beginning of this post really seems like I'm just complaining that people want me to be the best at my job. I will point out that while it is a bit frustrating that all someone can give me is that there is the letter "A" at the beginning of one of the words in the title and it sounded really cool, I also welcome the challenge.
   But again...
   Don't believe in the Compendium Illusion. 

The Bookstore

    Working at a bookstore has taught me three things; none of which could really be applied to a normal situation in life outside of a bookstore. But it's those kinds of lessons that we as humans like to ponder and see the deeper meanings.

    First, there is no such thing as too many or too few books. I have seen customers purchase a stack of twelve because they want some light reading for the next few days, and I have seen customers argue about why their friend is buying another book instead of just checking one out at the library, "You can only really read it once. It's always going to be the same beginning, middle, and end no matter how many times you read it. There isn't any point to owning books now adays."
    I will admit, that at hearing these words, two emotions pervaded my mind. 1: Shock and awe that anyone could say owning books isn't point-ful. 2: Mind numbing anger that would have lead to harsh comments if I wasn't in a place of my own employment.
    No point? But books are life! Books are how we pass on knowledge. It's the most pure form of entertainment imaginable. It's literally reading someone elses' mind, making the reader practically a super hero. No point... lies.
    Which leads me to lesson number one: readers are readers. E-readers may be just a little less of a reader, but that's a lesson still being learned. A reader loves a book. In the case of the second customer, berating their friend because of owning books, it is just apparently easier to not become emotionally involved with the book. But loving a book doesn't mean clasping it to your chest for dear life. No.
    Books are very "in the moment" objects. You can pick them up and put them down and loan them out and borrow them and lose them and forget about them and suddenly remember that that book changed your life. Any way you put it, a book's existence is dependent on you reading it, not it gathering dust on a shelf.

    Lesson 2! Now that I have talked about readers, and how we all love books and should thus be holding hands, singing camp fire songs, and discussing our favorite anti-heroes, I would like to point out that some readers just don't get it.
    "Excuse me, what else has 'Jane Eyre' written?"
    "Is 'The Beautiful and Damned' a sequel to 'The Great Gatsby'?"
    "Harry Potter was awful!" (This last one be fightin' words, bro.)
    I get asked these kind of questions every day and still don't understand why people don't know! I'm not by any means the most knowledgeable person when it comes to books. (Meet some of my co-workers. Some of them seem to have read each classic plus each new release fiction for the past 6 years. And can quote from them.) But at the same time, there are some things people should know when buying books.
    "No. 1984 isn't the edition of the book."
    Which leads me to lesson número dos. There is always more to learn about books. There are 300 new books published a day, not including self published ones. So if someone is confused and gets the facts mixed up (I still can't pronounce "Marcel Proust" right) then it's my job as a bookseller to educate, and then enlighten.

    Last lesson. Number 3. For those texters out there, also known as the curvy part on <3.
    Now some people, who shall remain nameless mostly because I don't know their names, hate books. I have had people come in and never once pick something up because they had only followed their friend in, and are too bust texting to notice the vast amounts of book-like heaven around them. I have overheard people say things like, "No I don't like reading. Really if it isn't in People Magazine, I don't really care."
    ...
    ...
    ...
    O_O
    ...
    Terrifying.
    Now, as you can obviously tell from the rest of this post, I'm in no way, shape, or form a judgemental person ( *wink*). But there are just somethings you don't say out loud.
So lesson three... Some people just don't like books, and really you don't need that kind of negativity in your life. So smile, move on, and purchase a new hard cover re-printing of the complete works by William Blake, because frankly, it's awesome.

   So class, the three lessons I've learned thus far in working at an Indie Bookstore. 1, readers are readers and we all love books differently. 2, some people need a little help, and those of us who can, should. 3, books are an essential part of life, even if you just enjoy reading instruction manuals. If you don't agree, you're doing it wrong.

Brio.