On the tribulations of book selling

One of the perils of working in a book shop is that almost every day I find one or more books that I really want to read, if not buy. And to remind myself, I make a note on a scrap of paper. Now my desk is littered with scraps of white paper, with cryptic references to books. Some have the full title and author, some have just a title or just an author, some have just the ISBN number. Other notes make reference to books without giving any particular details.

Immediately to hand I can find the following notes:

9780385603102 Danielewski

Seven Daughters of Eve - Sykes, Blink -- Gladwell

Conversation on the Quai Voltaire

9780276441769

Mrs Sparks -- Thames, ackroyd (I'm slightly concerned, this appears to be a note reminding me about a customer... I wonder if I was meant to find that book for her)

My success rate at helping customers is now up where I would like it to be -- generally pretty good, and helped by my constant eagerness to literally run off and find the book for them. Customers give me strange looks as they meet me bounding up the stairs, I usually laugh and apologise for being over-enthusiastic.

One particular customer enquiry continues to bug me. The customer came in enquiring after books by Tony Hawks. A middle-aged lady, I was a little surprised but figured it was probably a gift for a teenage boy. I checked the computer catalogue and told her we had one particular book in Sport. She was confused. I double-checked, but yes, no other results -- and I reassured her, Tony Hawks is a famous skateboarder. She still looked bewildered.

Several days later I happened across this book. There exists a wealth of titles by this best-selling author, all in Travel. I was thinking of Tony Hawk, or maybe that was what she had said his name was when she asked me. If I knew where she lived, I'd probably turn up on her doorstep with everything Tony Hawks has ever written.

I'm trying to think of moments of brilliance I've had, where a customer has been incredibly vague or clueless, and I knew what they wanted -- but I am coming up short. It's fairly common right now for people to come in, looking slightly unsure, and asking about Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, as if they expect me to say I've never heard of it either. I had to tell one customer this afternoon that Daft Punk wasn't a book -- although he wasn't convinced, since it didn't have "CD" written next to it on his son's list.

Today I also pretended to a customer to have a dog. He was buying a book called something like "The bad dog diaries", and wanting to be friendly I said to him "Haha, that sounds like my dog!". It seems I am less optimistic than the days when I was inventing girlfriends...

I did have a customer who wanted my expert help on a present for her teenage daughter. I must look the helpful, enthusiastic, bookseller I am -- even if I don't think I manage to be the hot bookseller I imagined myself to be at first. Anyway, this customer said her daughter wasn't the trashy literature type, and instead enjoyed things like philosophy. It was a bit vague, but they came to the right person with me rather than some of my colleagues, because I like this sort of thing. After a few moments thought, I went and lead the customer to Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. Naturally, that was far too obvious a choice -- because apparently it was already her daughter's favourite book.

This threw me, although there was another of Gaarder's books on the shelf, it didn't seem quite the same. So, although the customer insisted this was fine, I upheld we weren't that busy and my colleagues could handle the tills while I tried to find something that was suitable. Three guesses what I did recommend? Kafka On The Shore. I thought a surrealist novel that references philosophy and Shintoism should at least challenge the kid if nothing else. I'll never find out what she thought of it, I expect -- but that's not really the point.