Customers 6

At customer service yesterday I answered the phone. A woman wanted to get the book, The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life. Originally published in 1870, it is still being published. We didn't have any in the store, so she wanted to order one. There were many different versions to choose from. I was describing some of the versions to her so she could choose. Someone came up to the information desk wanting some help. The woman on the phone chose which version she wanted. After that all I needed to do was to get her contact information so we could contact her when the book came in. Someone else was coming up for help too. Should I call for more help at the desk? I thought I'd be okay, I got her name, phone number, I was almost done. Then she said, "Can you tell me if this book is available in Hungarian? I'd like to get it for my mother, who is older. Hungary is a country in Europe..." I called for backup.

An older man, in his 70's or 80's came up to the desk. He was wheezing and breathing heavily, almost gasping for air. His skin looked grey-ish. He used a cane, and leaned heavily on it as he walked and heavily onto the counter when he got there.
     "Taliban and War is the title," he said. "I want that book."
     "Do you know the author?", I asked?
     "Mosley," he said.
     I searched, both as an exact title and just with Taliban and war as keywords, with the author's name and without...
   "I could end that damn war tomorrow if they'd just let me go over there," he said. "I could do it. It's been going on too long. Are you finding it? I also want Marley and Me. Damn war. Damn government."
     "Marley and Me we have," I said. "I'm still not finding a book with that title either with or without that author..."
     "If they'd let me go, I'd go right now. I could stop that war." (gasp, wheeze) "It's not going to be stopped by atheists though. Too many damn atheists in the government. Damn atheists. Damn government. Damn Obama. Do you have that book?"
     "I'll go get Marley and Me," I said, thinking it might be better for him if I went and got the book for him. He followed me.
     "Got any more dog books?," he asked.
     "We sure do, here's the section right here. James Herriot has one...," I handed him James Herriot's Dog Stories.
     "This is good?," he asked.
     "He is good," I said.
     "All right, if you say so. I'll take it."

A woman stopped me in one of the aisles.
      "Can you show me the 'Teenagers are driving you crazy' section?"
      I laughed. "We sure do, right over here," leading her to the parenting and childcare section.
      "Maybe there's a book called Teenagers Suck," she mused. "And I mean that in the most loving way possible."
      She was having struggles communicating with and dealing with the two teenagers she had at home. She'd already read Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall?. We perused the section, and found a few...the Everything Guide to Teenagers, Parenting with Love and Logic.
      "It's like they are totally different people. My son who used to be so sweet now isn't," she said.
      "Yeah, they do that. Mine did that." "Oh, you have teenagers?," she asked intently.
      "Well, they are in their 20's now."
      "Ah. You survived.," she said wistfully.
      "I did. You'll survive too." I left her looking at several books.

A dark haired woman with bright red lipstick came up to the register. She was wearing a bright blue tank top and her fingernails were long and polished with glittery polish and there were stars on the fingernails as well. She had a big Wonder Woman tattoo on her arm, and a Wonder Woman figurine on her keychain. I'm pretty sure she is Wonder Woman. She might want be a little more discreet, so others don't find out.

I Love My New Book!

I have a new favorite book. (I was going to qualify that sentence by saying that it's my new favorite book for kids, but this book delights me every time I read it, so I took the "for kids" out.)



In I Love My New Toy!, Mo Willems tells the story of Piggie, who, as you probably guessed, has a new toy. He's excited about it and shows it to his friend, an elephant named Gerald. Gerald breaks the toy. Uh-oh. A broken toy. Does this mean a broken friendship too?

The drawings are simple, as is the dialog, yet both clearly and endearingly capture the wide range of emotions around the circumstances in the story, from delight to excitement to anger to sadness to hope to...well, maybe you'll have to see what else there is.

Little kids have lots of emotions that they haven't necessarily learned how to articulate. Piggie and Gerald do know how to express their emotions and they do it so well. I wish this book had been around when my kids were growing up. Never mind that, I wish it had been around when I was growing up. But it's here now.

Mo Willems has a series of books about Piggie and Gerald, as well as Knuffle Bunny and others. This one is my favorite, though if you are in your local library or bookstore, you can see which is your favorite.

The House of Tomorrow

While waiting to read The Passage by Justin Cronin (you mean we have to share?), I've perused several books, even started a few, before settling on Peter Bognanni's The House of Tomorrow.



I'm not sure what, exactly, attracted me to it. On the surface it doesn't seem much like my kind of book. On the cover (as you can see), is a drawing of a heart. Not a cute Valentine heart, but a kind of anatomical drawing, with arteries and veins. Kind of intense. From what I'd gleaned from the dust jacket, it's about a teen, Sebastian, who lives in a geodesic dome with his grandmother, who reveres Buckminster Fuller and his futuristic ideas. Sebastian meets Jared, who introduces him to punk rock. Again, not something that would draw me in, not being a fan of the punk rock genre.

However, drawn in I am. Sebastian has an interesting view of the world, almost certainly because he's been living almost in virtual isolation with his grandmother in the dome, and I'm thinking that his own quirky personality has something to do with it as well.

He and his grandmother have lived in the dome for many years. She has a stroke and Sebastian has to begin to navigate in the world.

Sebastian talks about watching television...
"I had never really watched much television before, and I was surprised to find so many lives full of constant torment and indecision. The people in the programs just endlessly wanted. They wanted things and other people and they wanted other lives. Then some music played, and it all began somewhere else."

So I'm interested. I want to see what happens with Sebastian and his grandmother and the dome and Jared and yes, even with the punk rock.

Staff Recommendations

I have recently become in charge of staff recommendations. Right now the theme is children's books. We have been collecting books for foster children, so all of the staff recs have been kids' books.

I chose Last Chance Texaco by Brent Hartinger, which is about teen-agers in 'the system'. They've been in foster care and group homes, so it's been an appropriate book for the book drive. Plus it's a good read.



The book drive is ending, so the staff rec bay needs to change. I have some choices. The staff members could just give me a book or two that they really like, no theme. Or I can choose a theme. I could do Dads and Grads. (snore.) I could do Good Beach Reads, which would be great if we had weather that resembled anything close to WARM. (Maybe in August.) I had the idea of having staff members choose a book they would like to receive as a gift. That's a thought. Another idea is a book they wish they'd have written. (not that they are all writers, but I have a feeling that most if not all of them have ideas of what is a brilliant and creatively written book.)

I have a few I might recommend. One that I think is skillful and cleverly written is I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters, by Rabih Alameddine. It's written as though the protagonist was writing her autobiography, and she can't decide how to start, so each chapter begins at a different place in her life, some are chronological, some start with significant events in her life, one is even in another language. Each chapter ends kind of abruptly, though after reading the entire thing the reader gets a good feel for the protagonist and her life. I loved this book (and wish I'd thought of the idea).



Another book I loved is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. A 13 year old girl is murdered, and she tells her own story from heaven. SO good. (It's also consistently popular, so I probably won't recommend it, as so many people have heard of it and/or read it.)



And then there's Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage. Firmin is a rat living in a bookstore who subsists on books. He reads them and he eats them. "At first I just ate, happily gnawing and chewing, guided by the dictates of taste. But soon I began to read here and there around the edges of my meals. And as time passed I read more and chewed less until finally I was spending almost all my waking hours reading and chewed only on the margins. And oh, how I then regretted those dreadful holes! In some cases, where there were no other copies, I have had to wait years to fill in the gaps. I am not proud of this."



I read an interview of Maurice Sendak and he was asked what was the best compliment he'd ever received. He said he'd received a letter from a mother of a child who said that her child loved his book so much that he ate it. It doesn't get better than that.

Choices! What would YOU recommend?