Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Things I miss about working in a bookstore...


26a by Diana Evans 2005
HeartSick by Chelsea Cain 2007
Mad Girls in Love by Michael Lee West 2005
Samuel Pepys A Life by Stephen Coote 2001
The Season of Lillian Dawes by Katherine Mosby 2002
These Dreams by Barbara Chepaitis 2002
Weight: 6 lbs
Method of Disposal: Leaving each book in a different place around the city—you cannot sell them, but you can do that, right?



The Advanced Reader Copy.  You never know what you will get.  Okay, sometimes you know right away that it is going to be terrible, but sometimes you read a book that blows up months later or a hidden treasure that you can recommend to readers who are tired of reading the same ol’ stuff.  It is an unfortunate truth that sometimes they come home, are not read for years, and do not serve their purpose.  Most advanced reader copies I encountered I would return to the bookstore so someone else could read them.  I usually got the remainders anyway.  The books the managers did not want.

I miss Advanced Reader copies.  I also miss talking to average people about books and touching books every day.  Smelling random ones off the shelves.  I miss knowing what is popular, even the ones I have no desire to read.  I hate not knowing what fiction books people are talking about or what aging celebrity has decided, like hundreds before them, to become a writer.  I am embarrassed when I cannot think of a children’s book I am smitten with that came out after the year 2007.  I am not itching to get paid nothing, be treated like shit, and clean up after lazy parents and avid magazine readers, but there are some perks to working at a bookstore, like Advanced Readers.

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