10-17-2010, 02:13 PM
I can so relate to this. When I was growing up, second-hand bookshops were a dime a dozen and one could usually count on low prices for anything that wasn't stored behind glass. Used paperbacks generally sold for about the same price as a candy bar.
As internet markets squeezed out the independent bookshops (I watched them start to fold, one by one, in the late '90s), prices crept up to compete.
I have also known many a used bookseller who fit the stereotype. Quixotic, curmudgeonly, asocial, often with a suggestion of Asperger's, they tended to look pained when approached with a question. Salesmanship seemed to them a necessary evil, to be dealt with as one deals with any distasteful chore: grudgingly and with a minimum of grace. Such characters wouldn't look you in the eye. Their domains were typically unfettered by any pretense of order; frequently the only thing that forestalled a state of complete chaos was the fact that the unshelved books lay on the floor in stacks, rather than in heaps and piles. Threading one's way between the teetering towers and claustrophobic alleys of books sometimes required the agility of a contortionist. Occasionally, the stock was organized into sections by genre, but you were lucky if alphabetical order prevailed over any of these sections.
And yes, I'm familiar with the staunch bookseller who refuses to give a discount for a tall stack -- or sometimes even a whole box -- of books brought to his counter. My usual response was to shrug and walk out of the shop. Nine times out of ten the bookseller would call me back, and agree to my offer -- if only to spare himself the task of re-shelving all those books.
I think that many used booksellers start out as romantic individuals who imagine that selling books and keeping a quaint shop would suit them as a profession -- only to find that it doesn't. Book people are book people, and usually not people people or business people. Having to deal with customers and business matters tends to take the glow off what seemed, from a distance, a rosy proposition.
Of course there are exceptions -- and when you find them, it's like heaven.
As internet markets squeezed out the independent bookshops (I watched them start to fold, one by one, in the late '90s), prices crept up to compete.
I have also known many a used bookseller who fit the stereotype. Quixotic, curmudgeonly, asocial, often with a suggestion of Asperger's, they tended to look pained when approached with a question. Salesmanship seemed to them a necessary evil, to be dealt with as one deals with any distasteful chore: grudgingly and with a minimum of grace. Such characters wouldn't look you in the eye. Their domains were typically unfettered by any pretense of order; frequently the only thing that forestalled a state of complete chaos was the fact that the unshelved books lay on the floor in stacks, rather than in heaps and piles. Threading one's way between the teetering towers and claustrophobic alleys of books sometimes required the agility of a contortionist. Occasionally, the stock was organized into sections by genre, but you were lucky if alphabetical order prevailed over any of these sections.
And yes, I'm familiar with the staunch bookseller who refuses to give a discount for a tall stack -- or sometimes even a whole box -- of books brought to his counter. My usual response was to shrug and walk out of the shop. Nine times out of ten the bookseller would call me back, and agree to my offer -- if only to spare himself the task of re-shelving all those books.
I think that many used booksellers start out as romantic individuals who imagine that selling books and keeping a quaint shop would suit them as a profession -- only to find that it doesn't. Book people are book people, and usually not people people or business people. Having to deal with customers and business matters tends to take the glow off what seemed, from a distance, a rosy proposition.
Of course there are exceptions -- and when you find them, it's like heaven.
