Bookstore Bingo: 7 Ridiculous Things Overheard At Bookstores (PHOTOS)

"Can you tell me who the author of Shakespeare is?" Yes, someone really did say that ... And it's probably one of the reasons #bookstorebingo started as a Twitter hashtag. Crazy things heard in bookstores -- it's the hilarious gift that keeps on giving.

We published a roundup this summer, again in the Fall, and now we're back for more!

Find out what people have said recently and join the conversation yourself -- use #bookstorebingo on Twitter and tell us what you've heard at your local bookshop.

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I've Said It Before Keep It To Yourself

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Comments

[bigdgib]

04:01 PM on 10/26/2010

I was a manager of a book store (Crown Books) during the 80s. One of the great questions I was asked by a customer was, "Who wrote 'The Diary of Anne Frank'?".

[fleaba]

04:21 PM on 10/24/2010

Walked into a bookstore where Andrei Codrescu was doing a book signing.
He was horrible and berated me for not buying his book (I had just walked in the door one minute earlier).
With that I did an about face and left.

[alhamp]

12:31 PM on 10/20/2010

I told the bookstore clerk I was looking for a copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Into his computer he typed, "Tequila Mockingbird".
"Yes we have that."

[MrNCN]

11:35 AM on 10/20/2010

Edward DeVere wrote Shakepeare. It's not THAT stupid a question...

[DKLabRat]

05:06 PM on 10/19/2010

Of course, it's not just the customers. I once asked the salesman in a book store if he had a copy of the latest volume in a SF series, which was among my favourites and on the bestsellers' list. He proceeded to deliver the opinion - to the air next to us, not even having the grace to look directly at me - that he could not understand why anyone would read such obvious drivel, that you might as well read the telephone book. Needless to say, I bought it elsewhere.

[DKLabRat]

04:58 PM on 10/19/2010

I once overheard this conversation between two old ladies, who were standing behind me while I was browsing:

"How'd you get on with that biography, dear? You know, the one by that actor...?"
"Och, I couldn't get through it. It was all me, me me!"

I had the worst time trying to hold in laughter until they were out of range.

[Shelly Santiago]

12:42 AM on 10/19/2010

I do not see many people in bookstores. When you think about it, it is all very sad. People no longer have love for things that take time. They only want the fast way out. Once when we lived in Savannah, GA we asked a clerk at a store if they had any type of zoo near. She told us she had no clue. We want to look at things on TV or look at it on the Kindle. Therefore, I am amazed at the fact that people still know how to drive to bookstores. The fact that they do not know about the books inside the store is not that surprising.

[FlaviaDeLuce]

10:14 AM on 10/19/2010

computers are taking over, I see people walking around staring at their ipad, missing the real world in front of them..

[Shelly Santiago]

05:15 PM on 10/19/2010

True as that might be! I think the problem is more than that. Technology is part of the problem, but our teachings as parents are the other problem. I don't see parents talking to children about the fun of reading, and how stories can lift you higher than any game ever could.

[fleaba]

04:22 PM on 10/24/2010

Check out the library...it is jammed every time I go there.

[clydelaz]

08:58 AM on 10/17/2010

None of these questions are stupid. They are all perfectly logical questions. No where near as bad as the answer given by a clerk in a bookstore when asked where 'All's Well that Ends Well' could be found. The reply was, "Try the self help section."

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

01:00 PM on 10/17/2010

Nice, yes even if I didn;t have a couple of editions of it, I would be loathed to go into Borders and ask for Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage". ;)

[benjycompson]

12:33 PM on 10/16/2010

There is nothing more daunting than the intricately arranged display tables. They always have books half opened leaning on another or stacked on top of each, and always in an A. I always look for the book in the shelves as it hurts to destroy such artwork. It is like the movie bins in Walmart that has the worker who arranges them all just for us to come and tear through it.

[ChelleAgain]

11:38 AM on 10/16/2010

I think with all the talk about education lately and with Waiting For Superman showing just how the stacked the odds are against an education, it mitigates my laughter. Yes, ignorance sucks, but it's a lot easier before you know that people are not even being given the basics. If they had been given a good education, it would have eliminated all the above examples. I think there are people who choose not to know anything that is not mandatory -- willful ignorance -- but the overheard examples at least happened in a building full of books. That means that there are interests waiting to be fostered in at least some of those cases.

I say we go all Lottery on people who avoid libraries and book stores like the plague -- and are proud to share that when they see others reading. Or, even better, the people who go out of their way to stomp on any literary interests in their children.

[Jared Watts]

05:41 AM on 10/17/2010

If my children like certain book tht's fine as long as they're an appropriate age. No one should be able to drive a car and read harry potter

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

01:01 PM on 10/17/2010

Well nobody should be able to drive a car and have Harry Potter as their favourite series of books perhaps.

[ChelleAgain]

02:14 PM on 10/17/2010

I think parents have a right to monitor what their kids read and make decisions on what's appropriate. My point is that there are parents who don't encourage reading at all -- and, in fact, discourage it.

[Biff Stiffley]

10:12 AM on 10/16/2010

RE: #6 - And here I thought CS Lewis was the lady that had the "Lamb Chop" sock puppet.

[Ladleman909]

05:28 AM on 10/16/2010

I was sitting in a comfortable chair at Borders reading Jazzonia by Langston Hughes and all of the sudden "Hey soul sister, ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio...." comes spewing out of the speakers. I got out of my chair and walked up to the register--I could could already see the silver rivers Langston wrote about in the flashing of my developing migraine. A woman wearing olive green (not silken gold) with a wide face (not long-headed) behind the counter asked me, "did you find what you were looking for?" I answered "yes." Now, this was true because I specifically went for the book that was in my hand. She shot me a strange sideways glance that indicated she was convinced I was lying for the sake of moving the process along. I paid with a card. "Can I see some I.D.?" I pulled my faded driver's license out of my front pocket and handed it to her. "Looks like you need a new I.D.!" I kind of rolled my eyes and took my license without saying anything. As I walked out, I caught a glimpse of Sean Hannity's down home expression on the cover of his new bestseller. All the while "hey soul sister, I don't want to miss a single thing you do...." played on.

[BannedFromCommenting]

03:38 PM on 10/15/2010

Is that Heidi Fleiss LOL! Bad photo shot..

[suntzu]

02:50 PM on 10/15/2010

"Who is the author of Shakespeare?" is not such a ridiculous question. That question has been occupying some sharp minds for hundreds of years.

"And so, almost every prominent Elizabethan has been suggested at one time or another as the author of one or more of Shakespeare's plays: Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh and of course, Francis Bacon."

To this list one should add Queen Elizabeth the First.

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/hidncode.htm

[gappedtoothgodwarrior]

09:58 AM on 10/16/2010

""Who is the author of Shakespeare?" is not such a ridiculous question. That question has been occupying some sharp minds for hundreds of years. "
The person posing that question in a bookstore was not musing upon the authorship issue.

And the majority of the proposed "true athor"s are utterly asinine and without any serious merit. The whole issue itself is based around the kind of snobbery that Robert Greene would have applauded.

[suntzu]

10:44 AM on 10/16/2010

Good Sir, thou takest my comment with a surfeit of seriousness. My comment was meant at a joke. Of course none of those people wrote Shakespeare's plays. They were done by 50 chimpanzees pounding away at typewriters, hitting keys at random. BTW, who is Robert Greene?

[MrNCN]

11:39 AM on 10/20/2010

Edward Devere - the 17th Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare... I thought everyone knew that.

[dbushik]

01:42 PM on 10/15/2010

Okay, so I've endured reading like three of these posts on HP over the past few months. They are not at all funny, and are mainly just pointless complaints by employees about the fact that they have to deal with customers as part of their job. Not even complaints over extreme customers, just book store employees whining about every day run of the mill questions from people who don't work in their store and intimately know what they know from working there. Just a bunch of pretentious crying here, not much else to see.

[FlaviaDeLuce]

03:18 PM on 10/15/2010

5 fans.. I can see why

[Americulchie]

03:32 PM on 10/15/2010

Believing as I do that brevity is the soul of wit;I have to fan and fave you.Brilliant

[All4ME]

03:40 PM on 10/15/2010

Yes. I agree with you dbushik.

(some people like to play schoolgirl games like "who has the most fans, huh? nyeh nyeh nyeh", pay no attention and continue to say your thing)

[FlaviaDeLuce]

03:44 PM on 10/15/2010

5 friends comment was a delivery tool, sorry it flew way over your head