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 will special order the book for anyone who asks, but we actually don’t stock Fifty Shades of Grey.
All time favorite Brooklyn book:
I realize this is a cliché, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was one of the first “adult” books I read as a kid, so that will always be a personal favorite.
To you, what’s the great American novel?
Tinkers by Paul Harding. I realize the typical idea of the great American novel is a sprawling, epic, all-encompassing book, and this book is certainly NOT that, but Harding manages to say so much about the human (and American) experience in few pages. That’s far more impressive to me. It’s harder to write precisely.
The relationship of cats to bookstores: discuss.
Every bookstore should have a cat. I’ve worked in three other bookstores before Community, and none of them had a cat. Tiny is secretly (or not so secretly) our boss.
What books make you immediately scornful of the buyer?
I usually try to not judge what other people read. People are looking to get different experiences out of books. Some people turn to books just to be entertained. If that means they want to read Fifty Shades of Grey, so be it. At least they’re reading. My job as an indie bookseller is to steer readers towards more books that they might enjoy. The best is when you can get someone who normally only reads one genre to try another genre.
What books make you immediately crush-out on the buyer?
Anyone who buys The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, Bluets by Maggie Nelson, Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith, or Proust will immediately win my respect.