Thursday, August 23, 2012

WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSTORES


Booksellers, bookstore groupies: Rejoice! The U.K.’s bestselling Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell has crossed the pond and will be available for purchase on September 13. This collection of outrageous conversations showcasing the most unusual and uproarious comments overheard by booksellers now includes a miscellany of hilarious additions from some of the best North American bookstores. 

We would like to thank the courageous and good-humored bookish staffers that came out in droves to make submissions at our BEA booth and for those that flooded our inboxes with the most entertaining reading material. 

Inspired more than three years ago by a patron who asked whether Holocaust victim Anne Frank had ever written a sequel, Jen Campbell began taking note of the strange and wonderful questions she received as a bookseller in North London’s Ripping Yarns and Scotland’s Edinburgh Bookshop, sharing the stories she heard through a series of popular posts on her blog. Campbell decided to write a book when actor and comedian John Cleese tweeted the simple question, “What is your pet peeve,” to which she immediately knew her response, “The weird things people say in bookshops.”  Such as…

  
“Do you have any pop-up books on sex education?"

“Do you have this children’s book I’ve heard about? It’s supposed to be very good. It’s called Lionel Richie and the Wardrobe.”

“Do you have a copy of Tequila Mockingbird?”

In celebration of the upcoming publication, we’d like input from you all—bookseller, librarian, bibliophile—no matter!  We hope you will share any delightfully despicable comments you've overheard in bookstores by tweeting at us @overlookpress with the hashtag, #weirdthingsbook. Every week, we will highlight the best quotes you send in!

You can also follow author Jen Campbell on twitter at @aeroplanegirl.
 

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