Customer: Hi, I’d like to return this book, please.
Bookseller: Do you have the receipt?
Customer: Here.
Bookseller: Erm, you bought this book at Borders.
Customer: Yes.
Bookseller: … I’m afraid we’re not Borders.
Customer: But you’re a bookstore.
Bookseller: Yes, but we’re not Borders.
Customer: You’re all part of the same chain.
Bookseller: No, sorry, we’re an independent bookstore.
Customer: ….
Bookseller: Put it this way, you wouldn’t buy clothes at Urban Outfitters and take them back to Gap, would you?
Customer: Well, no, because they’re different stores.
Bookseller: Exactly.
Customer: … I’d like to speak to your manager.
Customer (to her friend): What’s this literary criticism section? Is it for books that complain about other books?
Customer: Are all of your books for sale, or just some of them?
(A couple enter and start to browse new hardcover fiction titles. The man picks up Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America)
Man: I’ve been looking for this.
Woman: What’s that, honey?
Man: It’s this book about what would happen if Charles Lindbergh had become president instead of FDR.
Woman: Oh. Who won that election, again? I can’t remember.
Man: Uh…. Roosevelt.
Woman: Really?
Meaghan Beasley
Island Bookstore, Corolla, NC
Customer: You know that film, Coraline?
Bookseller: Yes, indeed.
Customer: My daughter loves it. Are they going to make it into a book?
Customer: Is this book edible?
Bookseller: … No.
Customer: Do you run story time for children?
Bookseller: Yes, we do. It’s on a Tuesday, for toddlers.
Customer: Great, the day care up the road is so expensive, and I’ve been dying to have a few hours to go shopping, and maybe get my nails done.
Bookseller: I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you have to supervise your child at story time.
Customer: Why?
Bookseller: … because we’re not a day care center.
Customer: Doesn’t it bother you, being surrounded by books all day? I think I’d be paranoid they were all going to jump off the shelves and kill me.
Bookseller: …
Customer: Could I bring my entire antique watch collection in to show you?
Marilyn Brooks
Battenkill Books, Cambridge, NY
Customer: Where is your section on bat books—to build a bat house?
Barbara Pope
The Mulberry Bush Book Store, Parksville, BC
Customer: Can you mail books to the jail?
Bookseller: Sure
Customer: Do you have a list of all your true crime books?
Cathy Allard
BayShore Books, Oconto, WI
Customer: Will you be open so I can buy the new Harry Potter book?
Bookseller: Yep, we’re having a midnight opening.
Customer: Great. What time?
Customer: I’ve always thought I’d like to open up my own bookstore.
Bookseller: Oh, really?
Customer: Yes, definitely. There’s just something about it, you know? I just think it must be ever so relaxing.
Customer: Who is the author of the Shakespeare plays?
Sheryl Cotleur
Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA
Customer: Excuse me, do you have any signed copies of Shakespeare plays?
Bookseller: Er… do you mean signed by the people who performed the play?
Customer: No, I mean signed by William Shakespeare.
Bookseller: …
Person: Hi, I’m looking for a Mr. Patrick.
Bookseller: No one of that name works here, sorry.
Person: But does he live here?
Bookseller: … No one lives here; we’re a bookstore.
Person: Are you sure?
Customer: Hi, if I buy a book, read it, and bring it back, can I exchange it for another book?
Bookseller: No… because then we wouldn’t make any money.
Customer: Oh.
Pizza Delivery Man (on entering the store with a large pile of pizzas and seeing the bookseller, the only person in the bookstore): Hi, did you order fifteen pizzas?
(One bright Saturday afternoon)
Customer (walks up to counter): Are you open on Saturdays?
Christopher Sheedy
Re: Reading, Toronto, ON
(Phone rings)
Bookseller: Hello, Ripping Yarns Bookstore.
Man: Hello, is that Ripping Yarns?
Bookseller: Yes, it is.
Man: The bookstore?
Bookseller: … Yes.
Man: Are you there?
Bookseller: How do you mean?
Man: I mean, are you at the store now?
Bookseller: Erm… yes, you just rang the number for the bookstore and I answered your call.
Customer: Do you sell iPod chargers?
Bookseller: … No.
Customer: Why?
Man: Hi, I was wondering if I could ask you about a book I’m writing.
Bookseller: Sure.
Man: Well, it’s here. (He produces “book”—a series of things stuck into a pad of paper)
Bookseller: Right, what’s the premise?
Man: It’s a children’s book. See, I’ve been taking pictures of stuff and my friend has been writing poems to go alongside it.
Bookseller: Ok. Are you a professional photographer?
Man: No, I’ve just been taking photos of things on my cell phone. They’re pretty good though, yeah?
Bookseller: Erm, well they’re a little blurry.
Man: Oh, that just makes them unique.
Customer: And your friend, has he had poems published elsewhere?
Man: Nope, he doesn’t believe in that kind of stuff.
Bookseller: Ok… so, what’s your next step?
Man: To get it published.
Bookseller: What’s your plan of action?
Man: Just send it off to publishers.
Bookseller: Which one?
Man: Any old one. All of them. It ain’t hard, is it?
Bookseller: With all due respect, it is rather hard.
Man: Well our friends think it’s a fantastic idea. And I don’t think it can be hard—there are books everywhere these days—just look at this store!
Bookseller: Well, yes, but we are a bookstore.
Customer: So, you sell children’s books?
Bookseller: That’s why it’s called The Children’s Bookstore.
Customer: Oh, I thought maybe it was someone’s last name.
Emma Casale
The Children’s Bookstore, Baltimore, MD
Customer: You have maps?
Bookseller: Yes, we do. Road maps?
Customer: Yes.
Bookseller: We have old ones, and new ones, over here.
Customer: I need map to the south coast.
Bookseller (has a look): I’m not sure we have a specific southeast map. We have a road map, though, which has a map of the southeast in it.
Customer: No. I walk.
Bookseller: You’re walking?
Customer: Yes.
Bookseller: To the coast?
Customer: Yes.
Bookseller: That’s very very far.
Customer: It’s five miles, yes?
Bookseller: No. It’s about eighty miles.
Customer: You point me in the right direction?
Bookseller: I don’t know which way it is from here.
Customer: Ok. I follow the smell of the sea.
Customer: Did I leave my bicycle in here?
Man (looking at a giant map on the wall of the store): When did they move New Zealand way down by Australia? Wasn’t it in Europe before?
Bookseller: …
Christopher Sheedy
Re: Reading, Toronto, ON
Customer (on noticing Nicola Morgan’s “Write to be Published” advertisement in front of the desk): A book on how to get published?
Bookseller: Yes. Nicola’s fabulous.
Customer: Is it about self-publishing?
Bookseller: Nicola focuses mainly on mainstream publishing.
Customer: Oh, I’ve written that kind of book myself.
Bookseller: Have you?
Customer: Yeah. I self-published it. It isn’t selling as well as I thought it would.
Customer: Oh wow, this bookstore is lovely!
Bookseller: Thank you.
Customer: I was in a bakery just like it the other day.
Bookseller: …
(Phone rings)
Bookseller: Hello?
Customer: Are you ok?
Bookseller: Excuse me?
Customer: Is the bookstore ok?
Bookseller: Yes… the bookstore’s fine, thank you.
Customer: Really? I heard that something terrible had happened.
Bookseller: … As far as I’m aware, we’re all fine.
Customer: Oh. Well, I got home from work to find a note from my daughter saying that there’d been a series of unfortunate events in the bookstore, and that I should call you about it.
Bookseller: Oh! No. You ordered Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. You can come and pick it up whenever you’re free.
Customer: … Oh! Well, thank goodness for that.
Pam Price
Book Shop of Beverly Farms, Beverly Farms, MA
Customer: Do you bother to arrange your books at all, or are they just plonked places?
Bookseller: They’re in alphabetical order…
Customer: Oh.
Customer: If I give you these three paperbacks, will you sell them and give the money to charity?
Bookseller: We’re not a charity bookstore.
Customer: Oh. Where does your money go to?
Bookseller: … It goes towards keeping us in business.
Customer: Someone should have taught that Shakespeare guy how to spell. I mean, am I right, or am I right?
Customer: Do you have any piano sheet music, but for guitars?
Bookseller: You mean, do I have sheet music for guitars?
Customer: Yes.
Customer: Oh, sorry. I thought you were the post office…. You’re not, are you?
Customer: Do you sell dictionaries?
Bookseller: Sure. What kind of dictionary are you looking for?
Customer: One with all the words.
Charles Miller
Quiet Man Bookshop, Cresco, PA
Customer (to her friend, upon opening a copy of The Lord of the Rings): Oh, look, this one’s got a map in the front.
Customer’s friend: Oh yeah. Where’s it of?
Customer: Mor… Mor-dor.
Customer friend: Oh. Where’s that then?
Customer: Hi, I just wanted to check: are you a bookstore, or are you a library?
Bookseller: … We’re a bookstore.
Customer: You should probably have a sign saying that somewhere; it’s confusing.
Bookseller: We have a big sign outside that says “Ripping Yarns Bookstore.”
Customer: Yes, well, that’s ambivalent, isn’t it?
Bookseller: It is?
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: …
Customer: You should consider arranging your books by size and color.
Bookseller: But then no one would be able to find anything.
Customer: Well, that doesn’t matter. It’d look pretty.
Customer (on the phone): Can you tell me how to get to your bookstore?
Bookseller: Sure—where are you coming from?
Customer: My house.
Deena O’Daniel
Barnes & Noble Sunset Valley, Austin, TX
Customer: You know, if you put boxes of books outside you’d attract a lot more customers.
Bookseller: … it’s snowing outside right now.
Customer: Can books conduct electricity?
