TBR Challenge: Jen Campbell - Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

This Sunday Times bestseller is a miscellany of hilarious and peculiar bookshop moments: 'Can books conduct electricity?'

'My children are just climbing your bookshelves: that's ok... isn't it?'

A John Cleese Twitter question ['What is your pet peeve?'], first sparked the 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller's collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor.

From 'Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?' to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year's weather; and from 'I've forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter' to 'Excuse me... is this book edible?: here is a book for heroic booksellers and booklovers everywhere.

This full-length collection illustrated by the Brothers McLeod also includes top 'Weird Things' from bookshops around the world.

Comment: June this year is special in the TBR challenge, for the theme is "bananapants" and it implies a certain type of book, with a crazy type of content. The first thing that came to mind was to find a book with a strange or different type of story and having looked around some of the titles I had in the pile, I saw this non fiction one, with a very suggestive title. How much crazier can something be than the silly things some people say?

In this little book we have several entries of weird things people say in bookshops, and it can be seen as a funny and quick reunion of what can happen when one mixes up a certain lack of awareness, perhaps the lack of knowledge of certain subjects and the amazing natural things sometimes people say in the spur of the moment in a public situation. The examples were taken from experiences in two main bookshops, and then there is a section with a few entries sent by booksellers in other places.

This is a short compilation of what those particular people said in bookshops, therefore not very representative, but for anyone who likes books, who likes the world of books and has some knowledge of books or related subjects, this will sound quite fun at times. To me, this was a funny book to go through, because I also work with the public (sadly, not in a bookshop nor a library) and all those weird, sometimes silly stuff we find in the internet people say/do being apparently unlikely in this day and age of information being available everywhere? Well, not really, and people do say silly things.

I think my issue here was not as much the entries chosen, like I said for those who like books and book related stuff, this will be appealing. If there is one critic I can do is that the entries are very limited, I imagine for comprehension reasons and because why extending the scene, but each entry read so quickly, I saw myself just turning pages almost without much thought. This means it's very easy and quick to read, but some examples are not as interesting as others, or perhaps they don't make as much sense depending on one's geography.

The edition I got was also illustrated and I will confess I sometimes thought to myself I wish there were less images - with a art style I don't appreciate particularly - and more entries, because the book was already small, then having so many small entries, then the images... I mean... I also saw this started off as a blog, and perhaps on that platform the graphics work out better, but I think the way the information is presented in book format could have been better planned too.

In relation to the entries, they were mostly fun and the result of a specific context, such as this one:

Customer: What kind of bookshop is this?

Bookseller: We're an antiquarian bookshop.

Customer: Oh, so you sell books about fish.

Or we have others I liked more, such as this one:

Customer: It’s amazing, isn’t it, how little we really know about writers’ lives? Especially the old ones.

Bookseller: I guess the lives of writers have changed a lot.

Customer: Yes. And don’t forget about those women who used to write under male names.

Bookseller: Yes, like George Eliot.

Customer: I always thought Charles Dickens was probably a woman.

Bookseller:…I’m pretty sure Charles Dickens was a man.

Customer: But who’s to say?

Bookseller: Well, he was pretty prominent in society, lots of people saw him.

Customer: But maybe that was all a show – maybe that was her brother, while Charlene was at home, writing.

Bookseller:…

Again, I need to say I think this is better appreciated for readers who like to imagine these things, and I think this was a good try for me because I work with the public and one never knows what comes next, but I also like bookshops and libraries and I can certainly imagine the "adventures" of those who work there needing to be polite about certain situations.

While reading this book I also remembered another one, with entries compiled by Gina Sheridan, about what people say in libraries. I used to follow the blog: https://iworkatapubliclibrary.com/ but it seems as if it's no longer being updated or used. What a pity because this blog had many entries and some were more poignant than silly, which I liked too.

Anyway, this certainly fit the bananapants notion if one thinks of the things people do say in bookshops (and everywhere), but I did expect to have more content. I know there is a sequel, perhaps one day I might try to get that one.

Grade: 7/10