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  MORE WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS

  MORE WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS

  Jen Campbell

  CONSTABLE

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55-56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  This edition published by Constable,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2013

  Copyright © Jen Campbell 2013

  Illustrations copyright © The Brothers McLeod 2013

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN-13: 978-1-47210-633-9 (hardback)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-47210-741-1 (ebook)

  Designed by Basement Press, Glaisdale

  Printed and bound in the European Union

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Jacket design by The Brothers McLeod

  For bookshop customers, booksellers,

  librarians, booklovers, book-hoarders,

  bookworms and librocubicularists

  (those who like to read in bed).

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Ripping Yarns Bookshop

  Weird Things Customers Say in Other Bookshops

  Weird Things Customers Say at Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops Book Signings

  INTRODUCTION

  The world of bookselling is anything but boring. In the past year a drunk man has thrown up on my shoes, a woman convinced herself I was hiding Hugh Grant in our storeroom, and a little girl tried to get to Narnia through one of our cupboards. And that’s just the beginning.

  Sometimes bookselling is the best job in the world. For example: a few months ago a customer gave us a call and said she was looking for a book she’d had as a child. She wanted to buy it to read to her grandchildren. As luck would have it, we had a copy, so we posted the book out to her. The following day, the customer called us back to say the book had arrived, and she couldn’t believe it: it was her copy. Her copy of the book from when she was a child. It had the inscription on the frontispiece from her great aunt, and a bump to the spine where she’d accidentally dropped it when she was seven. Her mother had sold the book in a car boot sale forty years ago, two hundred miles away from our bookshop. Somehow, we’d come across it and, somehow, she’d happened to call us. Moments like that are just wonderful.

  On a day to day basis, customers of all kinds make the bookselling world interesting. This book will show you the weird and wonderful side of that. The strange requests. The odd comments. The rude remarks. Not to mention the, quite frankly, amazingly awesome things children say – such as the boy who told me that, when he’s older, he’s going to become a book ninja. I have no idea what a book ninja is, but I want to hire that kid. Children are excellent.

  Chatting to people about about Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops, and travelling to other bookshops to talk about the book, has been a wonderful experience. I’m thrilled to be introducing the sequel. Like last time, this book also has quotes sent in from booksellers across the world, and there are some quotes from librarians, too. It’s comforting (I think) to know that people are saying strange things everywhere.

  Finally, this book has a little section at the back with some weird things said to me at Weird Things... book signings. Now there’s a mouthful. Don’t ask. Just read.

  The other day, a customer asked me what my favourite ‘weird thing’ was. I told him that changed all the time, but I have a particular fondness for the person who asked if Anne Frank had written a sequel to her diary. The man laughed and said: ‘You should have told her that she ghostwrote it!’ I think I might love that customer.

  Many thanks to the Twitter followers and bloggers who have come to visit Ripping Yarns after reading Weird Things... Special thanks to the two French guys who acted out scenes from the book in the middle of the shop – in French. Excellent stuff. And, seriously, to everyone who goes into bookshops – whether you happen to say weird things or not – thank you for supporting those bookshops.

  Long live bookshops, their booksellers, and every single one of their customers. (Well, maybe not the guy who threw up on my shoes. Everyone else still counts.)

  Jen Campbell

  Ripping Yarns Bookshop

  where I work, is an antiquarian bookshop in north London. Owned by Celia Mitchell, it’s been a bookshop since the 1930s. We specialise in old children’s books, but sell everything from biography and poetry to esoteric and ephemera.

  BOOKSELLER: Hi. Can I help you find anything?

  CUSTOMER: Yes. This is your history section, right?

  BOOKSELLER: Yep.

  CUSTOMER: I can see you’ve got books on World War I and World War II.

  BOOKSELLER: Yes, we do.

  CUSTOMER: But I can’t find any books on World War III. Where are those?

  CHILD: Mummy, who was Hitler?

  MOTHER: Hitler?

  CHILD: Yeah. Who was he?

  MOTHER: Erm, he was a very bad man from a long time ago.

  CHILD: Oh. How bad?

  MOTHER: He was like ... he was like Voldemort.

  CHILD: Oh! That’s really, really bad.

  Mother: Yes.

  CHILD: (Pause) So, did Harry Potter kill Hitler, too?

  CUSTOMER (picking up a copy of Little Women): Is this a book about really short people?

  CUSTOMER (pondering): How much would a signed copy of the Bible be worth?

  BOOKSELLER: Signed by whom?

  CUSTOMER: Well ... I don’t know. Not God, obviously. (Nervous laugh.) That would be silly ... wouldn’t it?

  CUSTOMER: I’d like to return this Where’s Wally? book, please.

  BOOKSELLER: Why?

  CUSTOMER: Because I’ve found him.

  CUSTOMER: Can you recommend a book of spells to raise pets from the dead?

  BOOKSELLER: ...

  CUSTOMER: Just animals, you understand – not people. I don’t want my husband coming back.

  CUSTOMER: Do you make wanted posters for books?

  BOOKSELLER: ... How do you mean?

  CUSTOMER: I mean, can I bring you a list of books that I’m looking for, and then you could make them into wanted posters and put them up around the bookshop, in case other customers know where I could find them?

  BOOKSELLER: Erm, I have a ‘Wants’ book that I can put your list of books in, and then I can let you know if we get those books in stock? Or I can try and track the books down for you myself, by calling other antiquarian booksellers?

  CUSTOMER: No, that’s OK. I like to pretend that the books are criminals, and that I’m tracking them down, like I’m the police. It’s more fun that way.

  BOOKSELLER: ... OK.

  (Customer tries to walk out of the bookshop with a book that he hasn’t paid for)

  BOOKSELLER: Excuse me, you haven’t paid for that book.

  CUSTOMER: Yeah, I know. Don’t worry; I’ll bring it back tomorrow!

  CUSTOMER (buying Thirteen Ways to Dispose of a Dead Body, whispers seriously): There are actually fourteen, you know.

  CUSTOMER: You’ve got a lot of books in here.

  BOOKSELLER: Yep.

  CUSTOMER: Do you ever just, like, sit here and count them?

  BOOKSELLER: No, not really.

  CUSTOMER: How long do you think it would take to cou
nt them all?

  BOOKSELLER: A long time; we’ve got thousands and thousands of books.

  CUSTOMER: How many exactly?

  BOOKSELLER: ... I don’t know. I haven’t counted.

  CUSTOMER: The Very Hungry Caterpillar was bulimic, right?

  LITTLE GIRL (pointing at Dr. Seuss books): I made a hat for my cat, but he won’t wear it. That book is full of lies.

  CUSTOMER: Where would I find a book about William Shakespeare?

  BOOKSELLER: We’ve probably got one in our biography section. I’ll have a look for you.

  CUSTOMER: Wouldn’t it be in fiction? I mean, he wasn’t a real person or anything, right?

  CUSTOMER: I’m looking for this picture book for my daughter. I read about it in a review somewhere. I think it’s by someone called E. L. James.

  BOOKSELLER: Erm, I don’t think it was by that person; that’s who wrote Fifty Shades of Grey.

  CUSTOMER (going bright red and clutching her handbag, as though hiding something inside it): Oh! I don’t know how that name cropped into my head, then. I’ve certainly never read any of those books! Never!

  CUSTOMER: Did they make a film edition of the Bible when The Passion of the Christ came out? You know, the text of the Bible, but with Mel Gibson on the front cover?

  CUSTOMER: My Kindle’s broken. Do you know how to fix it?

  BOOKSELLER: I’m afraid Kindles aren’t really my speciality.

  CUSTOMER (pulls her Kindle out of her bag): Look at it! I dropped it in the bath!

  BOOKSELLER: If you did that with a book, you could just put it on the radiator and then flatten it out between two heavier books.

  CUSTOMER (seriously): Do you think that would work for this, too?

  CUSTOMER: Do you have a copy of this book but with the title in red, instead of green? And maybe with a different background image, too?

  BOOKSELLER: ... No.

  CUSTOMER (holding up a book): What’s this? The Secret Garden? Well, it’s not so secret now, is it, since they bloody well wrote a book about it!

  CUSTOMER: Do you have a book on how to found countries? I want to know if it’s possible to claim my back garden as a separate nation.

  CUSTOMER: Do you have books on how to look after horses?

  BOOKSELLER: Yep, they’ll be in our nature section.

  CUSTOMER: Great. I need to do research on how to look after unicorns, and they’re basically the same thing.

  BOOKSELLER: ...

  (A customer is reading a book about the nativity)

  CUSTOMER (to her friend): Don’t you ever get the feeling that Baby Jesus is somehow related to Herod? I always freak out, thinking that he’s going to go: ‘JESUS. I AM YOUR FATHER!’

  CUSTOMER (to her friend): You know the book War Horse?

  CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: Yeah.

  CUSTOMER: It’s about horses during a war, right?

  CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: Yeah, I think so.

  CUSTOMER: But, like, how did they interview the horses to find out what it was like during the war?

  CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: Dunno.

  CUSTOMER (clicks her fingers): Got it. Did they use a horse whisperer or something?

  CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: I guess they must have done.

  CUSTOMER: That’s, like, so cool.

  CUSTOMER: I’d love to write a book.

  BOOKSELLER: Then you should write one.

  CUSTOMER: I really don’t have the time.

  BOOKSELLER: I’m sure you could make time.

  CUSTOMER: No, you don’t get it; I really don’t have the time. I had my fortune read on Monday, and the fortune teller lady said that I’m going to get knocked down by a bus next week. She said that it’ll probably kill me.

  BOOKSELLER: ... Oh. Well, er, that doesn’t sound very nice.

  CUSTOMER: No, it doesn’t, does it? It’s really annoying, too, ’cause I’d booked a holiday for next month, and I was really looking forward to it.

  CUSTOMER: Ooh, books by Nicholas Shakespeare! Is he William Shakespeare’s son?

  CUSTOMER: I’d like a book for a friend about saving the world from alien invasion. I’d like the main character to be a little like Freddie Mercury and a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Does anything spring to mind?

  CUSTOMER: Do you have Windows 7 for Dummies?

  BOOKSELLER: Sorry, we’re an antiquarian bookshop; nearly everything in here pre-dates computers.

  CUSTOMER: Oh. Do you have user guides for antiquarian computers? You know from, like, the olden days, when they had swords and stuff?

  BOOKSELLER: ... ?

  CHILD (to bookseller): Does Santa come to your bookshop to get gifts for kids?

  BOOKSELLER (nodding wisely): Yes. Yes. He does.

  CHILD: That’s awesome!

  BOOKSELLER: Yes, it is.

  CHILD: But ...

  BOOKSELLER: But what?

  CHILD: But ... Santa’s really fat. I don’t think he could squeeze down the corridors between the bookshelves.

  BOOKSELLER: It’s OK. He sends us a list beforehand, and we leave the books by the door.

  CHILD (impressed): That makes you Santa’s elf!

  BOOKSELLER: Yes ... yes, I suppose it does.

  CUSTOMER: Do you have any cards?

  BOOKSELLER: We have some old postcards in a box by the door. Some of them have already been written on, though.

  CUSTOMER: Oh, that’s OK. Do you have one that says ‘To Juliet, with love from Christine’? It would save me writing it out again, you see.

  CHILD: Mummy, where is the half-way point between Earth and Heaven? (Pause) It must be really far away. (Pause) Do you get to stop for a rest on your way up?

  CUSTOMER: Pride and Prejudice was published a long time ago, right?

  BOOKSELLER: Yep.

  CUSTOMER: I thought so. Colin Firth’s looking really good for his age, then.

  CUSTOMER: We’re having a book burning at our religious group tonight. I need all your books on witchcraft.

  BOOKSELLER: ...

  CUSTOMER: And, as we’re not going to read them, I expect a discount. We’re doing the world a favour by burning them, you know.

  CUSTOMER: I don’t like biographies. The main character pretty much always dies in the end. It’s so predictable!

  CUSTOMER (with a French accent): Where is the cemetery?

  BOOKSELLER: Oh, you go out of the bookshop and turn right ...

  CUSTOMER (angrily): No, in French.

  BOOKSELLER: Excuse me?

  CUSTOMER: You tell me in French.

  BOOKSELLER: ... I don’t speak French.

  CUSTOMER (outraged): You do not speak French?

  BOOKSELLER: No. I can draw you a map, instead?

  CUSTOMER: Non! Only in French!

  WOMAN (holding a copy of a Weight Watchers book in one hand, and The Hunger Games in the other): Which of these dieting books would you recommend most?

  CUSTOMER (to her friend): What do you do with your books after you’ve read them?

  HER FRIEND: Sometimes I burn them.

  CUSTOMER: You burn them?

  HER FRIEND: Yeah. If I’m in the mood.

  CUSTOMER: You know, I eat every good book I read.

  BOOKSELLER: ... Excuse me?

  CUSTOMER: I like to feel as though the book’s really part of me. So, when I’ve finished, I rip the pages up and put them in my food.

  BOOKSELLER: What about the books you’ve read but don’t like?

  CUSTOMER: Well, obviously I don’t eat those.

  BOOKSELLER: Oh, yes, obviously. (Pause) What food goes best with paper?

  CUSTOMER: Stews, mostly.

  BOOKSELLER: I see.

  CUSTOMER: And apple pie. That’s good, too. But you must never make books into milkshakes. I tried that once and it was not nice at all.

  BOOKSELLER: ... I’ll bear that in mind.

  WOMAN: Last night I had a dream that your bookshop burnt down.

  BOOKSELLER: Oh, well, thankfully we’re still standing.

  WOMAN: Well
, just you be careful. I have a sense for these things, you see.

  WOMAN’S HUSBAND: She does, you know. She had a premonition that her sister’s house was going to be burgled.

  WOMAN: That’s right; I did. I warned her about it and everything, and did she believe me? No, she didn’t.

  WOMAN’S HUSBAND: Didn’t believe her at all. And then, the next week, we went round to her sister’s place to feed her cat when she was away, and we forgot to lock the back door and what do you know?

  WOMAN: Boom!

  BOOKSELLER: Boom?

  WOMAN: Burgled.

  BOOKSELLER: ... I see.

  WOMAN: If only she’d listened to me. She could have stopped it from happening!

  CUSTOMER (buying a copy of Gulliver’s Travels): I’m thinking of going travelling, so I thought I’d give this a read to give me ideas of places to go. He seems to have gone to some really crazy parts of the world!