More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (27 page)

CUSTOMER:
I’m looking for a book. I think it’ll be in fiction.

BOOKSELLER:
Sure, fiction’s in the big room on the first floor.

CUSTOMER:
Just to check: is fiction the one that’s true or the one that’s not?

BOOKSELLER:
...

Ilona Gill:
Waterstones, Manchester, UK.

CUSTOMER:
Do you have
Pride and Produce
?

BOOKSELLER:
Erm ... Is that a cookbook?

CUSTOMER:
No.

BOOKSELLER:
A gardening book?

CUSTOMER:
No.

BOOKSELLER:
... Is it a novel?

CUSTOMER:
Yes.

BOOKSELLER:
Could you mean
Pride and Prejudice
?

CUSTOMER:
Yes!

Rosie Phenix-Walker:
Blackwell’s, Edinburgh, UK.

CUSTOMER:
Where in the book does it tell you how many pages there are?

CUSTOMER:
Do you have that new book by that guy ... I think his last name is Lama?

BOOKSELLER:
Umm, the Dalai Lama?

CUSTOMER:
I’m looking for that magazine – the one that comes out every other month or so.

CUSTOMER:
Do you have any books about absinthe? You know, the stuff that Picasso was drinking before he cut his ear off?

CUSTOMER:
Where is your section for outdoor adventure literature?

BOOKSELLER:
Are you looking for fiction or non-fiction?

CUSTOMER:
Are those my only options?

Kimberly Dotson and the staff of
B. Dalton Booksellers,
Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.

CUSTOMER:
Hi. Have you got a book on medicine for my sick Belgian pigeon?

CUSTOMER:
May I bring the book back if the person I am buying it for is dead?

Carol Wright:
Wordsworth Books, Somerset West, South Africa.

CUSTOMER:
You haven’t read
Fifty Shades of Grey
?

BOOKSELLER:
No, I haven’t.

CUSTOMER:
I’d like to talk to someone who knows about books.
(Turns to another bookseller)
Do you know a lot about books? Do you read?

Roxanne Pena:
Barnes and Noble, Long Beach, California, USA.

CUSTOMER ONE
(admiring a leather-bound classic)
: Wow, what a beautiful cover

CUSTOMER TWO
(while purchasing
Reflected in You
by Sylvia Day)
: I don’t buy books because they’re beautiful; I buy them because they expand my knowledge.

The booksellers of
Love That Book, Westfield Shopping Centre,
Helensvale, Queensland, Australia.