Confessions of the Bookstore Clerks: We Hate What You Read
If you sell it, who’s the prototypical Fifty Shades of Grey buyer in your store?
We’ve gotten a surprising amount of Bridge-and-Tunnel biddies since the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, but I’m still constantly surprised by how many regulars (usually mid-thirties-and-older women) bashfully buy it.
All time favorite Brooklyn book:
Do short stories count? I’ve always been obsessed with In Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Delmore Schwartz. Actually, I’m not even sure it explicitly takes place in Brooklyn. I just always pictured the story unfolding in Coney Island or Kensington.
To you, what’s the great American novel?
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth. Though, I just started Light in August and I’m thinking it might take the cake.
The relationship of cats to bookstores: discuss.
Book Court used to have a cat. An overweight, incredibly lazy, smelly, but all the same beloved cat named Francis. Francis was an exceptional cat, but I’ve always been a big advocate of the bookstore dog.
What books make you immediately crush-out on the buyer?
Something by an incredibly inaccessible philosopher… Adorno makes me weak in the knees.