Customer: “I was just in your fantasy section, and I couldn’t find the next book in this series. Do you have the next book in stock somewhere?” 

She takes the book out of her bag to show. Well, I say book, it’s actually half a book. It’s been split in half at some point, and what I am looking at is the last five hundred pages.

Me: “What happened to the book?”

Customer: “Oh, well, the books are so long and fat and I don’t have a lot of room in my bag, so I split them in half!”

Me: “Have you considered an electronic book reader?”

Customer: “What’s that?”

Me: “…Let me show you.”

Readers, that day her mind was blown. Also, I felt happy that I saved a lot of future books!

In college, I got an internship in a mechanical engineering office. I was actually an English student, but I needed an internship, and they needed someone to edit instruction manuals, so I ended up being one of a sparse handful of non-STEM people in the entire building.

My job involved a lot of visual computer work, so my trainer recommended lining up some podcasts and audiobooks for entertainment. I decided it was a good enough reason to listen to classics that I felt like I SHOULD read, but didn’t have the time to sit down with a paper copy and read. One of these was Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a Gothic horror novel about a man who sells his soul in exchange for eternal youth and a painting that ages in his place, growing more hideous as he grows more corrupt. 

One morning, a coworker came to my desk to talk about something, so I paused my audiobook and took off my headphones.

Coworker: “What are you listening to?”

Me: “Audiobook version of The Portrait of Dorian Gray.”

Coworker: “Is that the guy from 50 Shades of Gray?”

Me: *Trying very hard to keep a straight face.* “No, this is by Oscar Wilde. It’s a Gothic horror novel. ’50 Shades’ is erotica.”

Coworker: “Oh, interesting.”

I get that not everyone is a literature nerd, but who listens to erotica at work?! And if I HAD been listening to ’50 Shades,’ why on EARTH would I have admitted it out loud to a coworker twice my age?!

I’m a young adult living with my parents and three younger brothers. The oldest is twenty, hates any and all forms of “intellectual nonsense,” and is generally not the brightest crayon in the box. The middle one is fifteen and is sharp as a whip, but his favorite activity is gaming for hours on end. I’m working and don’t have the same free time, but I’m a regular patron at my local library.

It’s summer, and my parents have pretty much given up trying to get [Middle Brother] to do anything but game. I offer to let my brothers tag along on my library trips, which [Middle Brother] accepts after I mention the console games that are available to borrow near the DVDs.

After I turn him loose and tell him to find me whenever he wants to leave, we walk away with a couple of books and DVDs for me and a novel for him. A little surprising, but I didn’t want to make a fuss about it in case it embarrassed him out of picking out books in the future.

Later, my mother (who has no such reservations about not embarrassing people away from good behavior) catches a glimpse of the book he chose and pretty much dissolves into happy tears.

Mom: “It has pages! And chapters! And everything! And he picked it out by himself, it’s not even an assignment!”

Me: “Come on, he’s not [Oldest Brother].”

Mom: “Thank goodness! I’m not entirely sure that boy can read…”

This was a few years back when I was in a local bookshop buying a copy of a book. I was waiting in line while a young-ish-looking woman was handing over a couple of books for the cashier to scan.

Woman: “I’m glad I found the book for Wuthering Heights! It’s my favourite movie!”

Cashier: “I admit I haven’t watched the latest adaptation, but I love the book.”

Woman: “So … do you know if there will be a sequel out soon?”

Cashier: “Sorry?”

Woman: “Do you know if Emily Brontë is writing a sequel?”

Cashier: *After a long pause.* “…I don’t think she’s planning on writing anymore, no.”

I did all I could to stop laughing until the woman had left, obviously disappointed that her favourite author wouldn’t be writing again.

Back in February, my wife and I went to visit my parents for a couple of days. We’d heard that a new chain bookshop had opened in the local shopping centre, and since my wife is a bit of a bookworm, we decided to pay it a visit.

We were looking around, and I burst out laughing. My wife was intrigued, so she came over and asked what was so funny.

Me: *Pointing* “Is that meant to be bookshop humour?”

My wife looked at what I was pointing at and laughed, too. On a shelf was a book called “The Complete Sailing Manual”, which staff had arranged next to a book about the Titanic. My wife agreed that it was probably a weird attempt at bookshop humour.