Yesterday was National Library Workers Day, where library staff, users, administrators and friends group to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers.
Have you hugged your sexy librarian today?
Edit: In the same vein, I read an article about weird shit people ask booksellers. Thought I’d leave it here.
Customer: Urgh. Shakespeare. He’s everywhere, isn’t he? You can’t escape him. I wish he’d do us all a favour and just die.
Customer: I need a really awful book to give someone I hate. Any recommendations?
Customer (holding up an art book): Wow, Picasso must have gone out with some really ugly women.
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!
Customer (to her friend): I only like books that I can really believe happened, you know? Like Twilight.
Customer: Do you have audiobooks on sign language?
Customer: I don’t like biographies. The main character pretty much always dies in the end.
Woman (holding a copy of a WeightWatchers book in one hand and The Hunger Games — a science fiction novel — in the other): Which of these dieting books would you recommend?
Customer: What book do you recommend I read when I’m on the Tube to get girls to want to sleep with me?
Customer: Do you have any books signed by authors who are likely to die very soon? I’d like to make an investment.
Customer: I’m looking for that book, Romeo And Juliet. It’s about a fight between the DiCaprios and another gang.
Customer (eagerly): I really liked Fifty Shades Of Grey. (Pause) Do you have an illustrated version?
Customer: Hi, I’m looking for a Bible for my mother but I’m not quite sure who the author is
Elderly female customer: I can’t believe everybody’s reading this Fifty Shades …
Bookseller: I know. I take it that it isn’t your cup of tea, then?
Customer: Oh, no dear. Been there, done that — no need to read about it!
Customer: Hi, I’m looking for a book version of my satnav.
Bookseller: Do you mean a road map?
Customer: Maybe.
Customer (holding a signed copy of a Jacqueline Wilson book): I want to buy this book — but not this copy because someone’s written in it.
Bookseller: That’s the author’s signature!
Customer: I don’t care who’s written in it. I just want a clean copy!
Customer: Hello! I’m searching for a book. I’m not sure of the publisher but it’s really great and I just have to read it again.
Bookseller: Sure. What was the title of the book?
Customer: Well, the thing is, I don’t really remember.
Bookseller: OK, then how about the author?
Customer: I don’t know his name.
Bookseller: Right.
Customer: But he was definitely European…
Bookseller: OK.
Customer: It was non-fiction. Some kind of study. Probably.
Bookseller: Right.
Customer (looking expectantly at the bookseller): Come on, you must know the book I mean!
Customer: Do you have the new book by Charles Dickens?
Bookseller: Well, he hasn’t published anything since the 19th century …
Customer: The new one that Oprah Winfrey’s promoting.
Bookseller: Oh. A Tale Of Two Cities, yes, we have that.
Customer: Yeah, like I said, the new one.
Customer: Will you be getting Tolkien in for a signing soon?
Customer: Where in the book does it tell you how many pages there are?