Retail anecdotes
Mar. 19th, 2008 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbee"Is this any good?" the customer asked, indicating The Spiderwick Chronicles.
"Yes," I said, "it's very popular with older primary students -- the ones who've read all of Emily Rodda and want something more."
"But it's a fiction-type book, right?" she said, "not like Harry Potter?"
*
I never make up my retail stories. It would spoil the fun for everyone. For some reason, children's fiction seemed to be attracting people today. For example:
"Hi, I'm looking for the Fudge books."
"Oh, Judy Blume!" I said, with the pleasure of one who is about to inflict her childhood favourites on a total stranger.
"Yes," said the customer, "that's her name! It's about a girl named Judy and her little brother Fudge."
The customer is always right, except when they're dead wrong.
"No," I said, in my most diplomatic tone of voice, "Judy Blume's the author. You might be thinking of the Judy Moody series."
"There's no such person as Judy Blume!" the customer snapped. "That's the character. Someone else writes the books."
"Well," I said, "we do have a couple of the Fudge books. Come this way."
I led her over to the shelves, and put a copy of Fudge-a-mania in her hands. The words By Judy Blume were printed in large, bright green letters.
"There," the customer said, "I told you so."
*
Ever since I saw Black Books, I've been totally unable to sell The Little Book of Calm with a straight face.
That I ever could sell The Little Book of Calm with a straight face speaks, I think, to my high standards of professionalism.
*
Last week, I sold a copy of Belle de Jour's The Intimate Adventures of a London Call-Girl with the promise that it was a brilliant book, and the TV series was even better. I was, I would like to point out, only half lying. The TV series is better.
*
Some books I have left unfinished, for varying reasons:
Diana by Sarah Bradford - a well-researched, unsensational and fair biography of the late Princess of Wales. Abandoned because it was too depressing (and, irrationally, because Diana and my mother looked alike when they were young, and it's a bit distressing).
Fannish compulsions drive me to point out that the author is Lalla Ward's sister-in-law.
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz - teen spy thriller for the Stu-tolerant. Another notch down in my attempts to read the big teen novels. Abandoned because the main character was too Stu-tastic even for me, the female characters were all stereotypes (and mostly absent), the most interesting character was dead before the story began. I nearly continued, to see if the homo-eroticism in the Big Tense Snooker Game (sticks! balls! scoring!) had any payoff, but the chance seemed too narrow.
Chain of Hearts by Maureen McCarthy - another teen novel, about family secrets, guilt and lies. Abandoned because it seemed unlikely the book would end with a temporal cataclysm wiping the entire cast of characters out of history, never to darken my door again.
Life's too short for bad books. Unless I'm the one selling them.
"Yes," I said, "it's very popular with older primary students -- the ones who've read all of Emily Rodda and want something more."
"But it's a fiction-type book, right?" she said, "not like Harry Potter?"
*
I never make up my retail stories. It would spoil the fun for everyone. For some reason, children's fiction seemed to be attracting people today. For example:
"Hi, I'm looking for the Fudge books."
"Oh, Judy Blume!" I said, with the pleasure of one who is about to inflict her childhood favourites on a total stranger.
"Yes," said the customer, "that's her name! It's about a girl named Judy and her little brother Fudge."
The customer is always right, except when they're dead wrong.
"No," I said, in my most diplomatic tone of voice, "Judy Blume's the author. You might be thinking of the Judy Moody series."
"There's no such person as Judy Blume!" the customer snapped. "That's the character. Someone else writes the books."
"Well," I said, "we do have a couple of the Fudge books. Come this way."
I led her over to the shelves, and put a copy of Fudge-a-mania in her hands. The words By Judy Blume were printed in large, bright green letters.
"There," the customer said, "I told you so."
*
Ever since I saw Black Books, I've been totally unable to sell The Little Book of Calm with a straight face.
That I ever could sell The Little Book of Calm with a straight face speaks, I think, to my high standards of professionalism.
*
Last week, I sold a copy of Belle de Jour's The Intimate Adventures of a London Call-Girl with the promise that it was a brilliant book, and the TV series was even better. I was, I would like to point out, only half lying. The TV series is better.
*
Some books I have left unfinished, for varying reasons:
Diana by Sarah Bradford - a well-researched, unsensational and fair biography of the late Princess of Wales. Abandoned because it was too depressing (and, irrationally, because Diana and my mother looked alike when they were young, and it's a bit distressing).
Fannish compulsions drive me to point out that the author is Lalla Ward's sister-in-law.
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz - teen spy thriller for the Stu-tolerant. Another notch down in my attempts to read the big teen novels. Abandoned because the main character was too Stu-tastic even for me, the female characters were all stereotypes (and mostly absent), the most interesting character was dead before the story began. I nearly continued, to see if the homo-eroticism in the Big Tense Snooker Game (sticks! balls! scoring!) had any payoff, but the chance seemed too narrow.
Chain of Hearts by Maureen McCarthy - another teen novel, about family secrets, guilt and lies. Abandoned because it seemed unlikely the book would end with a temporal cataclysm wiping the entire cast of characters out of history, never to darken my door again.
Life's too short for bad books. Unless I'm the one selling them.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 04:43 am (UTC)And, gosh, isn't Intimate Adventures... awful? I read it thinking it might be good, and it's not bad, but I just hate the woman so much. Urgh.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 06:33 am (UTC)"...it seemed unlikely the book would end with a temporal cataclysm wiping the entire cast of characters out of history, never to darken my door again."
That was basically my reaction to The Merchant of Venice and Mansfield Park. (Except The Merchant of Venice was still good, even if I wanted to cheer while watching the characters sink into a lake of fire.) Respectively, I would save Shylock and Mary Crawford (possibly her siblings as well, but I can live without them more easily). The rest of them made the world all the worse by ever being conceived of.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 09:14 am (UTC)Stormbreaker is awful (I got a free copy with Deathly Hallows - it went to Oxfam pretty much immediately after being read)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 10:34 am (UTC)Hell, I've been unable to look at it with a straight face.
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz - teen spy thriller for the Stu-tolerant. Another notch down in my attempts to read the big teen novels. Abandoned because the main character was too Stu-tastic even for me, the female characters were all stereotypes (and mostly absent), the most interesting character was dead before the story began. I nearly continued, to see if the homo-eroticism in the Big Tense Snooker Game (sticks! balls! scoring!) had any payoff, but the chance seemed too narrow.
Thank you - he is a Stu. Also, I'm disturbed by the fact that he sees all this death around him but barely reacts. Any other 14 year old would either be rocking silently in a corner or a complete sociopath. I'm also disturbed by the blatant sexism in the series - all the female villains are 'bull dykes' or glamorous whores, the good women are nags and matrons and the teenage girls swoon over him. In defence of the series, I thought Ark Angel was the best and they are v. fast-paced and tightly written. It's just that it's such a blatant James Bond rip-off.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 04:37 pm (UTC)*HEADDESK*
The Fudge story was depressing as hell. Why are there so many complete idiots out there?
Was this an adult or a young person?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-20 07:49 am (UTC)and also... your customers.... WTF?
O_O
no subject
Date: 2008-03-20 10:56 pm (UTC)I kind of have to believe someone set her right, sometime. It will blight my life to think she's still walking around thinking Judy Blume is a fictional character.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-20 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-01 01:55 am (UTC)You are made of win. May I friend you?
(And I agree, Alex Rider is a total Stu. The only reason I'm still reading those books is because I know at least three people who write absolutely wonderful fanfiction about them. Well, that and because I hope K-Unit is going to make a comeback. They're the only ones I really like that aren't dead yet.)
I think I'm going to go find more of your retail stories now. They're fascinating — although, in cases such as the Fudge woman, it's more 'train wreck' fascinating than anything else.