Last Saturday, my husband and I decided that our fun with a vengeance activity would be to visit the local used book store. We will be going to Fiji next month and need a little bit of reading material for the 8+ hours in the air (and all the time spent at the airport).
When we walked into the store, we were greeted by a squabby* red-headed lady. When she asked if she could help us, I asked here where the business books were. And books on economics. I was also interested in biographies and possibly a history book like Team of Rivals by Doris Goodwin.
She led me to a little nook. The shelf was three feet wide and six feet tall. Books were in random order, in piles hither and yon. It didn’t take me very long to look at all of them and decide that those books (dating from the 1960s) weren’t quite what I had in mind.
Then, I asked her where the Newbery Award books were. She took me to another spot. “They are mixed in with the classics,” she said. More piles. More stacks. More lack of order. Before she left me to browse, she said, “I think that you would really like books by this author.” She mentioned a name that I was not familiar with. “He has written a series of 12 books all about a baptist preacher.”
Hmmmm. . .
I was surprised (to say the least) by her suggestion to me. I was seeking books on business, economics, biographies, history — and award winning children’s books. What synapse in her mind connected these topics to the series about a Baptist preacher???
It was interesting to note that there was one whole room for romance novels. You know the kind . . . heaving breasts, breathy whipsers of desire. That room was very well organized. No piles there. Each series was arranged alphabetically so it was easy to find a book. And, the clerk could tell you all about every single book and every single author.
What does this tell you about the used bookstore and its clientelle? If the romance novels take up a whole room and is very well organized, that must be where the heavy traffic is. Are economic books important? Are business books a priority? Do they care about history or biographies? Me thinks not.
There was a section in the back for the political intrigue, action-packed books. They were alphabetically organized. I was pleasantly surprised.
I don’t think this used bookstore is for me. Somehow, I don’t think that I’ll ever find very many books that interests me there . . .
*squabby: short and stout. (This lady was almost wider than she was tall.)