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Confessions of a Bookseller #23: Interesting

A woman rushes into the store about 10 minutes before closing asking for me for a favor. I ask what the favor is. She says that she needs to fax something to the United Nations. I tell her that we do not have a fax machine in the store, and ask her why she needs to find one. She responds by saying that the Library of Alexandria never actually burnt down, and that all the books were distributed amongst the Freemason families of the day. She said that she was a part of one of those lucky families and needed to fax proof over to the UN, as they were putting together a collection. 

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There’s a special place in heaven for independent online booksellers.

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The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson

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Strolling aimlessly in a bookshop is selfcare

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if my future doesn’t involve me owning a small used bookstore i simply do not want it !

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Confessions of a Bookseller #22: Righteous

A woman lingers in the Christian Fiction section for about half an hour, making glances and looking down her nose at me from across the shop. When she came to purchase her books, she asked if I would like something to read and slid a pamphlet in front of me that read, in bright, red, dripping font, ‘FOR SINNERS ONLY’

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Confessions of a Bookseller #21: Pining

A man comes in with an assortment of Sci-Fi and Fantasy books to exchange for credit. There are a couple ones that I can’t accept because they are, in essence, porn. I hand them back to the man and he tsks his tongue and says it’s quite a shame. He said that they were gifts from an old girlfriend of his that looked quite similar to the women in the illustrations (he said, while staring at the illustration’s breasts). He said that he did not want them back and didn’t know what to do with them if I couldn’t accept them. I offered to recycle them for him and he got defensive. “You only throw away books on leftist garbage like communism and global warming.”

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Confessions of a Bookseller #20: Equal Rights

A man comes in 2 minutes after opening to order a book about violence against women in the Catholic Church and proceeds in engaging me in a particularly rousing conversation about whether aliens deserve equal rights as humans. I play along and give my thoughts and he leaves on the note of “Well, when they come, you’d best prepare yourself. When they come, they’ll come with an agenda. Like the politicians.”

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Confessions of a Bookseller #19: A Man of Style

A man comes into the store holding a cane with a large decorative blue gemstone on top of it and wearing a Pac-Man print three-piece suit. He browses the Indigenous Literature section for 45 minutes and leaves without purchasing anything.

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"When I set up the Facebook account for the shop four years ago, I had a look at other bookshops that had done the same. The content seemed almost universally bland and didn't really convey the full horror of the exquisite joy of working in a bookshop, so I took a calculated risk and decided to focus on customer behaviour, particularly the stupid questions and the rude comments."

Excerpt from The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

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*Enters a bookstore*

me to myself: be calm

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“Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.” – Virginia Woolf

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four walls of hardbacks

instead of hard hearts or snow

I'd rather be here

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Me and used bookstores

I absolutely love going to used bookstores. The more eclectic, the better. I could spend hours going through all the books. The only downside is that I always buy more than I can ever find the time for. The prices are just so reasonable! As a result, I have bookshelves full of the most incredible books ever, each with page 25 bookmarked. Someday I’ll find the time. For the time being, I just limit going to used bookstores.

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Bookstores around the world. Location: Stratford-upon-Avon, England

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This used bookstore belongs in Diagon Alley.

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Quinto Bookstore, London