Canto VI - The Slough of Stupidity...

There it is: you’re having a great time. You’ve set up your shop to face another working day; you’ve had your first coffee of the morning; the sun is shining; birds are singing; you’re ready to greet your first customer with grace and equanimity. And here they come:

They smile and approach the shop-counter; they look around themselves in seeming wonder; and then they breathlessly say:

“Wow! Have you read all of these books?”

Boom! Thunder rolls; birds splat on the pavement having been struck by lightning; the sun disappears like someone turned off the switch; the coffee grumbles in the pit of your stomach. You twitch your upper lip into a sneer:

“Why, yes,” you say, “yes - I have. There’s not much work involved in selling books so I have to fill up all that time somehow.”

“Gosh,” they exclaim, looking around wide-eyed, and, if they’re really stupid, they go on to say, “it must be so much fun to work in a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...”

(See: Canto I – The Waystation of the Ignorant.)

If you’re feeling particularly blunt-instrument-y, you might answer with the much more direct:

“What do you think?”

In this case, they back away, still smiling, just a little more fixedly, like a bunny in the headlights, feeling that something is expected of them and that they’re not going to like it, no matter how it turns out. And it turns out badly.

Boom!

Spoiler Alert!

We have this image on display at work and it gets a lot of attention. Everyone who sees it, gasps in amazement and then says something along the lines of “you can’t keep a good reader down!”, or “that’s resilience for you”. It seems to create a spirit of camaraderie amongst fellow readers and this hearkens back to things I was saying earlier about how people in bookshops somehow feel like they’re all part of some big secret community.

In fact, you might have clapped eyes on this image a few seconds ago and had similar feelings and thoughts about it. If you’d like to take away those warm and fuzzy notions with you, then you should leave now.

...

Have you gone yet? This is your last chance.

...

Okay, this is really your last chance to skip on to something else. Seriously, I’m about to ruin whatever you might think about what these guys are up to.

...

Okay. Now that the only people left reading are the tough-minded cynical types, I can reveal to you that these fellows are insurance assessors totting up their company’s pay-out after a bomb went through their client’s shop. Yep, despite appearances, nothing but cold, hard, finance happening here.

If you were wanting a sentimental, Blitz-based image celebrating the do-or-die adherence of readers to their hobby, look at this instead:

Canto V - The Sharp Defile of the Defilers...

Sometimes books get so worn and damaged that they no longer serve any purpose. They can’t be re-sold; they can no longer be read. Sometimes they just lose their pertinence, like an old encyclopaedia – time and research stand still for no-one. I see books like this all the time and, there’s no way that I can buy them for re-sale at the store – they’ve been read into the ground.

What to do with them? Tragic as I find it, sometimes books need to go to the recycling facility and be returned to the great cycle of literary proliferation. It’s sad, but it’s better than burning or burying them. My job, as I see it, is to keep books in circulation for as long as possible, to stave off the inevitable.

Unfortunately, there is a sector of the community out there, who would rather gather together old books and do unspeakable, God-awful things to them. This involves (but is certainly not limited to) folding them into lanterns; lacquering them into stacks to use as occasional tables and doorstops; and tearing off covers and spines to convert into notebooks and bookmarks (imagine if someone tore off a person’s arm and then shoved it down your jumper to remind you where you were going; it’s that sort of hideous).

Some people only buy books based on what they look like. The books are not to be read; they are not to be opened at all. They are colour co-ordinated to match furnishings in overly-decorated interiors. It makes you wonder why these people install bookshelves at all. I once met someone who stacked their bookshelves with books spine inwards so that the appearance of all the books’ fore-edges could create an “interesting effect”. This would not seem to be such a bad thing – after all, the books are not being destroyed – but they only remain undamaged until the interior decorator decides to alter the appearance of their decor. Then all the books go to the tip. There’s a movement locally amongst Real Estate agents (who eat their own young, incidentally) to encourage their tenants to not bring books to their rental premises at all, much less decorate with them, as they create an “eyesore”. WTF?

Worst of all, are those people who buy books to cut up for the purpose of scrapbooking or découpage. This is where you slice all of the pretty pictures out of perfectly good books and either paste them into another book, or lacquer them onto boxes, or items of furniture, to create objects of kitsch. I have had plenty of discussions with such people – who will make a beeline to your art section with murder on their minds – and I stringently derail all their efforts, by denying them access to anything that will suit their present bloody project. I endeavour not to tell them to drag their miserable carcases out of my shop and never darken my door again, because that way lies an absence of customers from the wider community, but I’ve come close. Pretty damned close actually.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they just bought books and left without telling what sacrilege was fermenting in their feckless little brains; but no, they take great delight in explaining what it is they’re about to do with this rare, limited edition printing of the world’s best examples of Japanese painted screens; or a deluxe Taschen edition of 60’s Pop Art; or an exquisite unblemished copy of Pixie O’Harris’s Sea Greenie and Pearl Pinkie. It’s like they think they’re doing something wonderful and fully expect you to be pleased for them.

I tell you, burning ain’t good enough.

Black Books...

I’ve watched Dylan Moran’s comedy vehicle “Black Books”. By way of proof I offer this piece of evidence:

It is, in my opinion, the most depressing, soul-destroying piece of documentary television I think I’ve ever seen. I think most booksellers would agree with me.

Many times I’ve had customers ask me at work, apropos of nothing, “Have you seen ‘Black Books’?” with a sort of gleeful expectancy. I generally say “Yes”, and try to leave it at that. If I say “No”, then they insist that I seek it out and thrill to the circumstance of seeing my world enacted in farcical terms before me. The problem is, it’s no farce – it’s all too real.

Take Bernard for example. He is a curmudgeonly, misanthropic, growling autocrat, a bundle of bad attitude and worse social skills. He is, in fact, like most booksellers I’ve worked for. For example:

There was the fellow who employed me way back when I had long – very long – hair, and decided that I was a homosexual, despite all evidence to the contrary. His first words to me were “Well I hate your guts, but we’ll see how we go.”

Then there was the bookseller I worked for who took an instant dislike – without any reason – to anyone who spelt their name “Graeme”. He always called them “Greams” and pointedly made their lives Hell. He also once decided to bid on his own stock online to beat up the prices and was seriously put-out when E-bay came to call and reprimanded him sharply.

There was a bookseller I knew who, when I tried to buy a certain book from her for 12 bucks, told me at the point where I was handing over my cash, that it had been “removed from sale”. Then, as I made to leave, feeling quite disgruntled, she stopped me at the exit and told me that I “could have it if I liked”. She’d made a quick check online in the interim to make sure that I wasn’t doing her out of some big sale.

Have I worked for a bookseller with Bernard Black’s substance abuse issues? Well, one of my managers was habitually stoned from dawn ‘til dusk, then drunk from dusk ‘til dawn, so I guess that counts.

These are fairly minor examples, and the ones which won’t get me into too much hot water for talking out of school. Basically, most bookdealers want to lurk in the back of their stores while punters toss money in through the door: they don’t want people to take their stock; they don’t want to engage with them on any level; but they do want the money. For the most part, they hide their prickly natures behind their staff.

If you meet a sales assistant in a bookshop, five’ll-get-you-ten that they’re a student. They will be inanely greeting customers or they will be trying to be unseen at the back of the shop, dusting the same books over and over. They will be oily and ingratiating, or next to invisible; what they won’t be is any use at all.

These types of employees will be watching the clock; they will be waiting to get home and write their paper or play something on their X-box. The only thing that they are unquestionably able to do, is to ramp up the aggression levels of their boss. However, their bosses are usually too non-confrontational to actually give them the boot.

Of course, not all of us are like this. Some of us have met enough of our own to know how to tone it down or to play against type. Now that you know, you’ll be able to spot the really useful booksellers from the duds.

Just don’t ask us what we think of “Black Books”.

Canto IV - The Rising Gorge of Idiocy...

There is an occupation out there somewhere in the world which goes by the name “personal shopper”. It sounds like an interesting job – fulfilling the gift-buying obligations of those too wealthy and too busy to do it themselves - but I’m sure it’s fraught with difficulty. Get it wrong, and it could well be calamitous.

Book sellers are not – by any definition – the de facto personal shoppers of those people who enter their places of business. We don’t know your friends and family; we don’t know who you are; we certainly cannot pronounce judgement on our wares as to their suitability as a gift for your loved ones. Essentially, we are not all-knowing.

After asking us for something to give to your Aunt Beryl, you will no doubt dismiss out of hand the first three suggestions which we offer: you will, it transpires, know your Aunt Beryl better than you think; certainly better than we do. Most likely, you will suddenly decide, after having wasted an unthinkable portion of our existences, that what she would like most is a pot plant, and then you will leave without compensating us for having given you time to reflect upon the nature of your quest and its outcome. Thanks for nothing.

While it may be a bit of an ego-stroke for customers to wander in and assume that we do possess powers akin to those of God, in the long run it only causes irritation.

Canto III - The River Styx...

Books have been around in one form or another for millennia. The structure of the book is perfectly evolved to handle a serious amount of abuse, from dirt, to rough handling, to fire and even moisture. Of course, books are not impervious to these types of damage, but they are resistant. One thing they are not designed to deal with though is stickiness.

In the course of preparing books for sale, I encounter all kinds of stickiness. Prime among these are old price tags from former dealers. These run the gamut from fairly inoffensive removable tags to the kind that absolutely destroy the book as you peel them off. The worst kind are the electronic security tags that some shops use and which they think will save their stock from being stolen, when, in fact, they are countered by the simple expedient of holding a largish coin over them as you pass through the security gate at the exit. You heard it here, folks! Perhaps the irremovable nature of these gadgets is some kind of payback for being so mind-numbingly easy to outwit, who can say?

The other annoying price tags are the ones that are pre-cut so that they separate into many sections rather than peeling off in one go. I’m looking at you, Kinokuniya...

Having removed the sticker there’s often a tacky patch that is left behind which, is irritating to the touch and which will transfer gummy smears to the rest of the book. The best way to deal with this – and indeed most types of tags – is the simple application of eucalyptus oil using a tissue. Lightly soak the tissue, wipe the affected area, sponge up any excess, allow to dry. It works like a charm and, if you have a cold, there’s a bonus side-effect!

The worst thing about price tags is that they can lift the lacquer on a book’s cover, and this is becoming more evident with the modern types of paperbacks that are being produced these days. Lacquer is used to make a book cover extra shiny; or, if the required effect is a matte one, then the lacquer gives the wrapper a textured kind of rubbery effect. The problem is that, with so much lacquer, the sticker adheres to it rather than the cover, and when you peel the sticker off, a patch of lacquer comes with it. It looks bad and, since the lacquer helps make the book somewhat waterproof, your new book is now a sponge waiting to get to work. Eucalyptus oil might work with these situations, but be careful: those matte lacquers can react badly to the treatment and you can end up with a blotchy, tacky mess.

One place I worked at, we used a spray furniture polish to clean books, a product called “Mr Sheen” (nothing to do with Charlie or Martin). It works a treat, but a little goes a long way.

A note of warning: if you use these cleaning methods, use them only on paperbacks, on the dustwrappers of hardcover books, or on dustwrapper-less hardbacks with shiny covers. The boards of most hardback books are composed of non-waterproof substances and they will be effectively destroyed by these treatments.

Something which is occasionally encountered in books is tape. Some people mistakenly think that putting tape along the edges of the dustjacket will protect it from chipping or wearing and this is true – for a microsecond. Sticky tape is a type of adhesive celluloid and rapidly becomes yellowish and brittle if exposed to light, or high temperatures. The glue is highly acidic also and reacts badly with book paper. In short order the tape will flake off and the glue will have created horrible dark brown marks on your books’ pristine surfaces. Some people cunningly plastic-wrap their books and are careful to make sure that any tape they use doesn’t touch any part of the book, attaching only the plastic wrap to itself. It doesn’t matter: the acidic chemicals in the glue emit vapours that assault the paper and voila! Horrible dark brown marks. Repeat after me: tape and books don’t mix,

And forget about Scotch Tape, so-called “Magic Tape”, too. Not so magic. Not so much.

Other types of sticky tend to come in the form of substances that come into contact with the book while you’re enjoying the contents. These run to gamut from jam to red wine, and I’ve seen them all in my book-cleaning time. Just remember: a mildly damp cloth will take care of anything that you smear on the shiny outer covers of your novel or its dustwrapper. That lacquer is built to take it. If you spill something onto the pages, that’s a different story; but be quick and mop with something absorbent and you will probably minimise the devastation.

Speaking of which: if you wet a book with glossy plates on the inside, you run the risk of sticking those pages together. Break out the hairdryer and blow them dry on a light heat: they will probably buckle or ripple slightly, but, if any moisture remains, they will become glue-y and stinky, which is worse. If they stick together, any effort to separate them will tear the surface of each plate and render them useless.

What else? I once found a jam doughnut in a book that had been flattened and put back on the shelf for a week. A quick funeral was all that could be done. Some things – like an erotic text with the pages glued together - are just too obnoxious to attempt rectifying...

In the final analysis, it’s best to treat your book in the same way that you treat your computer: don’t let any sticky, damp, or wet things get close to it. In this way you avoid that sinking feeling that you get when you spot the champagne glugging out of the disc drive on your laptop. Been there, done that...

Canto II - The Dark Valley of the Non-Bookmarkers...

People get interrupted all the time while they’re reading. Many people will place their book opened and face-down nearby while they deal with the distraction; other people – those who can fully expect to enter Heaven - use bookmarks. There is a special place in Hell though, for those people who turn down the corner of their page and shut the book.

A book that has suffered this indignity is referred to as “dog-eared” for the comparison which the disfigurement begs. The resulting crease across the top (or bottom) corner of the page means that the book will never close properly afterwards and will cause the text block to “fan”, meaning that whenever it gets put back on the shelf it runs the risk of being further damaged in the process.

The worst instance of this that I’ve seen was while sitting behind a reader on a bus. When he finished reading both sides of a leaf, he folded the top corner of the left-hand page all the way down into the gutter of the book and pressed it down carefully into a sharp crease. For the next page he folded the bottom corner of the page up in the same fashion. Rinse and repeat. The result was that the book started to resemble some weird paper-craft project like one of those fold-out Christmas stars. It was the worst bus trip of my life.

Of course it’s not as bad as - I forget who did this: I keep thinking it’s Samuel Johnson but he’s too early; possibly G.K. Chesterton? – anyway, whoever it was, they would read a book while travelling up to London by train. As they finished reading the leaf, they tore it out of the book, and tossed it out the window. There’s an especially deep and scalding bit of Hell reserved for this fellow...

In my day-to-day work routine, I’m constantly pulling bookmarks out of books which I’m cataloguing for sale; these get given back to customers wherever they’re presentable enough. Where they’re damaged, written on, or detrimental to the book, we recycle them in other ways. Some bookmarks are not well-designed: any bookmark which is made of metal, for example is a big no-no. Reject them out of hand. Those that have tassels are alright, but please make sure that no part of the string lies between the pages because string is not flat and will deform the book. The best bookmarks are those that come as part of the binding, in the form of ribbons.

Sales receipts, leaves, concert tickets: lots of things end up as bookmarks and not all of them are good for the book. One thing that always freaks me out when I’m cleaning up a book, is finding a piece of toilet tissue in a book, used to mark a page. I can’t tell you how disgusting I find this. Please just don’t.

Biggles and the Black Peril...

Pride & Prejudice...

You might think that I made this up just for yucks.

You'd be wrong.

Raphael...

At a loose end, the Archangel Raphael takes off for a few hours and fires up his Kindle...

Canto I - The Waystation of the Ignorant...

People who don’t work in bookshops always say the same thing to people who do:

“It must be lovely to work in a book store!”

The comment is usually delivered in breathy, wonder-filled tones, and backed up with a sense of awe. If you want to annoy a bookshop worker, saying this - or something like it - is the best way to do it.

People who don’t retail books seem to have a vision of how things are in the book world: they think that we sit around all day, sipping lattes and reading Dostoevsky. They think we have high-brow intellectual conversations regarding reviews in the Times Literary Supplement or air our opinions about the short-list for the Man Booker Prize. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Selling books is working retail, no more, no less. In this sense it’s no different from selling fruit at a grocery store, or pushing white goods on folk at Harvey Norman. You greet the customer; you respond to their request; you provide the goods they need; you take their money; you wave bye-bye. End of story. Yes, you need to develop your product knowledge, which, prima facie, means you have to get familiar with the books; however, reading is something you do on your own time, not the business’s. Bookstore workers know about books more often than they know the books intimately.

Like any other business, there’s a whole lot of administrivia that goes on behind the scenes. Shelves need to be re-stocked; new books need to be priced; displays need to be broken down and re-done. Many bookshops have a “sale or return” policy with distributors that generally means new books can be returned, if unsold, between 6-9 months: this time frame needs to be carefully monitored and return authorisations requested. Company representatives appear regularly and these people need to be schmoozed, their catalogues examined and products identified along with quantities for purchase. And then, if the business has an online presence, there’s a world of website updates and online orders to be maintained.

And, when you boil it all down, books are heavy and they attract dust. Schlepping and dusting are the mainstays of everyone’s role in a bookshop.

In essence, it’s just like any other retail job and, like any other retail job, the pay sucks. And here’s the kicker: of all the multitude of retail jobs out there, bookselling pays the worst of all.

Yes there are perks: sometimes you get a staff discount on all your purchases. The downside though, is that you can’t claim these purchases on tax as “improvements to your product knowledge”. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Unlike any other retail position however, those people who sell books have to put up with the most ludicrous expectations from their clientele. Someone will come in and they’ll ask for a particular book; you find it for them and then they ask ‘is it good?’ Or they’ll suddenly assume – on the basis of the fact that you know how your shop is organised – that you’re an appreciator of Mein Kampf like they are. On the basis of the simple provision of literary material, book buyers – by and large – assume that you’re soulmates. And then they want to talk about it.

Bookshops are set up to allow the punters to browse. People wander in and have a look around; often they’ll just be filling-in a few spare moments before their train comes, or before an appointment. Letting people browse is like car salesmen letting potential buyers kick the tyres. However, in bookshops, the customers somehow assume that you, like them, have nothing at all better that you should be doing. Next time you engage a bookseller in conversation look at their jaw: if they’re clenching their teeth, stop talking: you’re keeping them from something important.

Of course, customers are important to booksellers – without them the whole exercise becomes pointless. Most bookpeople aspire to a point of grace between juggling all of the things that need to be done in order to keep the shop functioning, and being entertaining to their guests. It doesn’t always work. And, in a post-“the customer is always right” era, the ideal customer tries to be aware of this.

By not saying things like “it must be so much fun to work in a bookshop!”

Abandon Hope...

I’ve worked with books for quite awhile now and there are things about writing, publishing, selling, collecting and buying books that, over time, become noteworthy and particular. Not all of these things are good. In fact, most of them are particularly irritating, and yet they are considered par for the course.

For the last couple of years, my colleagues and I have begun collecting instances of these irritants and, in a spirit of whimsy, have allocated the perpetrators of these annoyances to various levels of a fictive Hell, much like the one that Dante invented. We’ve gathered enough material between us that, rather than let it all fade away, I’ve decided to give it its own blog-space. Perhaps some of these situations will resonate with other booksellers, as well as those working with books in other capacities.

However, it’s not sufficient, I feel, to just poke fun at the day-to-day annoyances of book work, without at least trying to rectify some of the issues. Books, from this very moment, will only become rarer, increasingly scarce commodities, as technology shifts and moves. The ones that are left should be looked after and maintained, and discussions of how to do that should form part of this narrative also.

This will, therefore, be a place where you can go to learn what bothers your local bookdealers and also to learn how you can better look after the books that you own, possibly with an eye to capitalising on their re-sale at a later date.

Above all, since this started as an amusing exercise to pass time at work, I will try to make this as fun as possible.

C’mon in...