(A couple approaches the desk)
Bookseller: Can I help you find something?
Man: Yeah, we’re looking for a vocabulary book. It’s either called The Soars or The Sars.
Bookseller: Let me look it up and see what we have.
Woman: Oh, it’s ok, I made a note of the title.
(Customer pulls a napkin from her purse and lays it down for the bookseller to read. Written on it is: “The Saurus.”)
Anonymous
Customer: Do you have a copy of Nineteen Eighty Six?
Bookseller: Nineteen Eighty Six?
Customer: Yeah, Orwell.
Bookseller: Oh—Nineteen Eighty Four.
Customer: No, I’m sure it’s Nineteen Eighty Six; I’ve always remembered it because it’s the year I was born.
Bookseller: …
Customer: My granddaughter’s looking for a book about Agnes’s knickers… do you know what I mean?
Bookseller: Agnes’s knickers… Ah! Louise Rennison can be found over here.
(Bookseller hands customer a copy of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging)
(At a university bookstore)
Customer: I’m looking for a book for my Northern Anthropology Class.
Bookseller: I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that class. Do you know the title, or have your syllabus with you?
Customer: No.
Bookseller: Right. What’s your overall course in?
Customer: Literature.
Bookseller: Oh. (pause) So, not anthropology?
Customer: No.
Bookseller: Right. Are you looking for the Norton Anthology?
Customer: Yes, that’s it!
Megan McCluskey
College Bookstore, NJ
Customer: Do you have Campbell’s Soup for the Soul?
Glen Robbe
Books Inc, Mountain View, CA
Customer: I’m looking for some books on my kid’s summer reading list. Do you have Tequila Mockingbird?
Anonymous
Customer: Do you have the CliffNotes for The Poems of Jimmy Stewart?
Anonymous
Customer: Do you have Agatha Christie’s Death in Denial?
Customer: May I have a copy of The Tiger’s Wife? How did she live with Tiger Woods all those years!
Mary Jane Reed
G. J. Ford Bookshop, St. Simons, GA
Customer: I don’t know why she wants it, but my wife asked for a copy of The Dinosaur Cookbook.
Bookseller: The Dinah Shore Cookbook?
Customer: That must be it; I wondered what she was up to.
Elizabeth Durand
Bookland of Maine, ME
Customer: There was a book in the eighties that I loved… but I can’t remember the title.
Bookseller: Can you remember anything about it?
Customer: I think it was called 360 Fairy Tales.
Bookseller (searches on a central catalogue): Nothing under that name, sorry.
Customer: I might have got the number wrong. Could you just type in “fairy tales” and see what comes up?
Bookseller: That could take a while.
Customer: Do you have that Enid Blyton series? Not The Secret Seven—the other one.
Bookseller: The Five Find Outers? The Famous Five?
Customer: Yes, The Famous Five, that’s the one. The one with the transsexual.
Customer: Excuse me, but do you have Flowers for Arugula?
Pam Price
Book Shop of Beverly Farms, Beverly Farms, MA
Customer: Hi, my kid needs The Count of Monte Crisco for Honors English.
Betsy Weitzman
Borders, King of Prussia, PA.
Customer: I’m looking for Canary Row.
Jason Frost
Russo’s Books, Bakersfield, CA
Customer: Do you have any Willa Catheter?
Anonymous
Customer: Do you have Fiddler on a Hot Tin Roof?
Jan Weissmiller
Prairie Lights Books, Iowa City, IA
Customer: I need A Few Good Men by Joe Steinbeck.
Bookseller: Do you mean Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck?
Customer: No, I said A Few Good Men.
Bookseller: The movie?
Customer: No. It’s a classic book! Steinbeck.
Bookseller: I don’t see that here by him. But he did write Of Mice and Men.
Customer: What? Just show me where to find his books.
(Later)
Customer: Here it is. Of Mice and Men. Right there on your shelf.
Jade Hollingsworth
Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA