BookstoreBingo: Crazy Things Heard In Bookstores (PHOTOS)

For the first #WriterWednesday of the new year, amidst news of turmoil at Borders and sales records at Amazon, let's celebrate what goes on in bookstores -- yes, physical bookstores -- across the country each and every day. To do so, we rounded up the funniest things said in bookstores, as tracked by the amazing Twitter hashtag #bookstorebingo.

We've featured it before and we'll do it again. It's just too funny to stop. So, as long as funny things are said, we'll keep listening.

Let us know if you've heard anything else ridiculous recently! We'd love to know.

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Total comments: 37 | Post a Comment

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Comments

[Reyeshawk13]

08:41 PM on 01/05/2011

"I need to get a book for my friend's granddaughter"
"How old is she?"
"7"
"What kind of books does she like?"
"I don't know, I've never met her. I just need a book a 7 year old girl will like."

[mrs adler]

04:47 PM on 01/05/2011

Loved the "what's your favourite war"? It seems her dad is a super-fan of a war and she never listens LOL

[Reyeshawk13]

08:42 PM on 01/05/2011

Every military history buff has a favorite war. Dad probably a bunch of military history books, but I bet most of them were about a particular war or era.

[EverthingThatRises]

04:07 PM on 01/05/2011

I work in a bookstore and I get asked the stupidest questions. The one that kills the most is "Are the books in alphabetical order by author or title?" I get this at least once a day, and the next time I get asked this I'm going to ask them where they are getting it from. Have you ever been to a bookstore or library in which they order the books by title?! That would so confusing and...stupid!

Also the next time a book doesn't immediately scan do NOT say "Looks like its free". This is not original, in fact everyone says this exact same thing, you are not funny or witty

[mrs adler]

04:47 PM on 01/05/2011

You should probably be paid more than you are. I love books and hate that kind of people...

[mssreader]

06:48 PM on 01/05/2011

Everything, I work in a Indie bookstore and agree about the stupidest questions. The scan I can relate to along with "I came in for a book"duh. I haven't heard the alphabetical one and I've been in the store for 15 years. The ISBN was funny. I love the most popular one, "its something to do with --------) love it and that one is common. I once spent about an hour with a young woman who wanted to know about books she should read and I was very patient and we went through lots of books and then she asked if I'd write them down for her because she was going to the library! That's one I'll never forget. I gave her pencil and paper and said I had other customers that needed help. She left the store.

[EverthingThatRises]

07:53 PM on 01/05/2011

mssreader, I sympathize with you. Couldn't the girl just go to the library in the first place?! We get a lot those people who want you to spend an hr searching for a specific book, you could stake your life on their absolutely needing this book for survival, and then when you find it they're like "cool, thanks" and leave without buying it!
Probably the weirdest request I've ever received was a command from a woman to turn off the music in the store because she "likes her house quiet". I said "No, this isn't your house!"

[Reyeshawk13]

08:50 PM on 01/05/2011

We had a guy who would come in, grab a book off the shelf, sit down in the aisle and start reading. When I said something to him, he got all huffy and started talking about how much money he'd spent in the store (none, actually). Found out later he'd been kicked out of every bookstore in town for doing the same thing. Crazy part was that he was reading Mark Twain and such and our hours were basically the same as the library's, which had nice comfy chairs to use while reading.

[GrumpyDudes]

01:35 PM on 01/05/2011

Oh man, I can so relate to these! A few months ago I was browsing at Borders, and this pleasant looking geriatric-type lady was blathering to someone on her cell phone. She was literally ten shelves away from me and I could still hear her!
"Oh, you're gonna have to get some wine now." *cackle cackle*
"Oh sugar, you're gonna have to get a vibrator now!" *cackle cackle*
"What? What?! Hold on while I turn this up, there's some guy looking at me."

(I swear, I did not make these lines up...and it was me looking at her. But my "look" failed me, because she didn't instantaneously combust and turn into a lovely little pile of ash.)

I wrote about this a bit more in a blog I wrote about a few months ago - http://grumpydudes.com/component/content/article/34-gdblog/109-an-open-letter-to-cell-phone-users.html

[mssreader]

06:51 PM on 01/05/2011

Grumpy, it's the rude cell phone manners in bookstores that is a very pesky problem and so rude. and they insist on yelling. One night we were having a reading and there was a guy whose cell phone went off and he went a few feet away and starting talking about making airport connections so I asked him to go outside or to the far corner of the store which he did do and then came back and apologized to me, he should have apologized to the author, and said he was trying to make airport connections and I replied that yes we were ALL aware of that as we couldn't help but hear him.

[Woods-shade]

12:15 PM on 01/07/2011

you just had me rolling in the chair laughing.. : )))

[Wrong House]

12:54 PM on 01/05/2011

Overheard at the Strand Bookstore.

Customer: Do you have the bible?
Manager: Did you check the fiction section?
---
Customer: I'm looking for an author. His name starts with an "S."
Employee: . . .
---
Customer: Where's the self-help section?
Employee: . . .
---
(Hearsay)
Employee: Did you hear? Holden Caulfield is in the store.
Employee: Where?

[Breslin]

12:45 PM on 01/05/2011

If you like these you should check out www.overheardindublin.com

Its a collection of stories which were overhead in Dublin. Exactly what it says on the tin!

[CHMB]

12:40 PM on 01/05/2011

I used to work at a bookstore and the things I heard.

So, about a year ago, you had this book on a table, it was Yellow and it might have been about Iraq. Me; errrrrr?

What's even worse is that people would give you vague descriptions and you knew what book they were talking about.

[Reyeshawk13]

08:38 PM on 01/05/2011

Like color of the cover and former location on the shelf?

[CHMB]

08:55 PM on 01/05/2011

Yep! Sometimes I even knew the book the person was talking about.

There were the asinine descriptions of books, people who were convinced a book was out when it wasn't. Also the random bible pamphlets left lying around the store.

[PerfectTommy]

12:19 PM on 01/05/2011

I appreciate bookstore clerks who are patient with some of the dumb things we ask. I only got into reading Carl Hiassen after a quick thinking clerk deciphered a couple vague clues I could remember months after hearing Carl talk about "Native Tongue" on NPR. I'm still trying to figure out my favorite war...

[lillianvargas]

11:32 AM on 01/05/2011

My favorite experience as a bookseller was when a lady, wearing tons of expensive jewelry and with her husband in tow, laid several very large, very expensive gardening books on the counter. Her husband asked her, "Why do you need them? We've got a gardener!" Very calmly she replied, "Yes, but I have to be able to tell him what to do." and handed me her platinum Visa card. I couldn't fault her logic.

[Woods-shade]

12:16 PM on 01/07/2011

priceless. ; )

[lvmcdee]

11:24 AM on 01/05/2011

When I worked at a bookstore many years ago, two of my favorite things customers asked me were:

1. Where is the red book I saw here last month?

and my favorite:

2. Do you have anything my father would like? (my answer: "Yes.")

[Mannock]

11:47 AM on 01/05/2011

The red book thing happened to me in a bookstore that I worked in.

A young man came into the bookstore looking for a book that his girlfriend recommended.

Me: "What is the title?"

He: "Oh...I'm sorry, I forget."

Me: "Do you know the author?"

He: "Sorry, no. Not much help, am I?"

Me: "Fine. Well, is it fiction or nonfiction?"

He: "Sorry, I really don't know. All I remember is that it a red book."

Me: "Catcher in the Rye?"

He: "YEAH! THAT'S IT! THANKS!"

[Daphoenus]

11:22 AM on 01/05/2011

My favourite from my bookstore days was a customer who wanted to buy a particular art book for her daughter for Christmas.

Me: Do you remember the artist or title of the book?

Customer: No. But I do remember that it had pictures in it!

Ever so helpful. Thank you.

[KIVPossum]

09:58 AM on 01/05/2011

#7 doesn't seem strange; she was buying a book for dad and wanted to be sure of his interests.

[RedDogBear]

11:31 AM on 01/05/2011

I agree, kind of an odd way to phrase it but not nearly in the same league as the others.

[ProCynic]

09:32 AM on 01/05/2011

Everytime they do this list, it gets more and more lame. And you start to see ones where people are making the stuff up, e.g. the "real book store".

"Things You Made Up About Overhearing Things In Book Stores".

[mssreader]

06:58 PM on 01/05/2011

Believe me, you don't have to make up things you hear at a bookstore. The stories here haven't even tipped the iceberg. 15 years and I could write a book!

[alieninvader]

09:00 AM on 01/05/2011

I liked the ISBN slide, but only because I worked in a bookstore in college. My favorite request, and I got similar quite often, was, "I'm looking for a book. You know, it's green."

"Do you know the title or what it's about?"

"No, but I'll know it when I see it."

[GraceNotes]

10:18 AM on 01/05/2011

Amazing they went to all the trouble of counting the digits of an ISBN number. Our library patrons sometimes give us the ISBN number when they need to find a book.

[WhatDaBleep]

08:32 AM on 01/05/2011

How about putting a 'Waste of Time' response in the scoring section because that is what this article is.

[Jeff Cunningham]

12:15 PM on 01/05/2011

Yet you not only clicked onto this page, but you took the time to leave a comment.