I Am a Book Whore: Confessions of a Sleep-Deprived Bookseller

I just proposed to my pizza delivery guy. This is the third time in the last two weeks. This is also the third new pizza guy. I’m starting to get a complex.

This is not the reason for my whoredom (the proposals, not the complex. The lack of response and the sheer confusion at the proposals is starting the complex and…I need to stop now). I don’t want y’all to get the wrong idea. My “love the one your with” attitude stems not from my morals standards (loose though they may possibly be), but from the biological reaction of my primal instincts.

Yep, it’s biological, baby. It’s in my genes. Built in Twinkie defense. Secretly I’m looking for a hunter to gather my pepperoni, black olive, mushrooms, onions and green peppers onto one fabulous bready crust (with mix of cheese and sauce to help blend the flavors). And really, deep down isn’t that what everyone is looking for?

Well, that and a cold beer.

Ahh, beer. I didn’t have the proper respect for you in college, wrote you off as not worth my time due to my introduction to your pale cousins. I apologize for my lack of attention will make up for it with haste.

If for some reason you can tell, I’m exhausted. I tend to get a wee bit flowery. I apologize in advance.

I’m not drunk though. I’m smart enough to stay away from the computer when drunk. But sleep deprivation is a way of life, and it puts me in the right mental state to relay a simple truth to you: that I am a book whore.

I come from a long line of different whores: land whores (not that it turned out well, never marry into an indigenous people and expect that they are going to keep their land when obviously there are tons of settlers and miners and what-nots that need it more, more, more), money whores (the transcontinental footrace was a great idea, running off with the entrance fees and the cash prize not so much), and most recently a plant whore.

I grew up on a nursery, you see, where my father cultivated Japanese maples, dogwoods and various weeping varieties. Japanese maples are amazing trees, available in a variety of shapes, colors and variegations. Total visual smorgasbord. The leaves would change from white to pink to red to green. They would be spotted, or stripped, or flowered. While my friends all complained that we wouldn’t build a tree house in the trees (and really, what good was a tree if it couldn’t hold a tree house?), I loved it all: running through the rows, jumping in the leaves, watching the colors change.

Very idyllic.

I became slightly possessive, however, of the trees around the house. They fit just perfect under the eves and against the windows. The looked like they belonged. Who cares if the trees in the fields would come and go, the trees around the house were ours, damn it!!! They were part of the family!

Apparently it’s okay to sell off parts of your family if they come from the Plantae kingdom. Who knew? Not I. Not until the beautiful Weeping Atlas behind the basketball hoop disappeared one day while I was at school. It mattered not that they’d come from my grandfather’s nursery (and were old enough to be my grandfather), that I’d practically memorized the limb structure and how it looked like a bent over old man, or that I’d bled for that plant every time I had to duck under the limbs to get the basketball. No, my father had sold them all (there were four, I believe) because someone had offered enough money.

I was heartbroken. Shocked! Where once there had been trees there was now just pits in the ground.

“But they were our trees,” I wailed to my mother.

“I know, baby, but someone bought them. They’re going to a good home.”

“But they were ours! How could have sold something that was ours?”

“Well, because your father is a plant whore, honey. I learned a long time ago not to get attached.”

A plant whore, by my family’s definition, is a man or woman who will sell any plant if the money is right, even if it is a family heirloom. Conversely a palmatophile is a person who collects trees (specifically the acer palmatum or Japanese maple).

Palmatophiles love my father, and I’ve learned not to get attached.

Using the above definition, a book whore would then be someone who would sell any book as long as the money was right. This would be correct except for the small fact that booksellers don’t get a commission. Not at all. Despite what some of my customers think. Because the possible commission on a book? Not enough to pay for my internet connection. Therefore the definition must be tweaked to conform with the restrictions of the job. The new (and more widely accepted) definition of a book whore is a bookseller who will say anything to get you to buy the book.

There are times where it’s my picture you’ll see next to that definition.

I am not a full-time book whore, or even a part-time one. My book whore moments are just that, moments. These moments are usually preceded by a customer who I know wants desperately to buy this one title but they can’t make up their own mind so they ask, “What do you think about it?”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. This is a really stupid question to ask a bookseller. I know that it doesn’t seem like it. On the surface it seems completely reasonable. I mean, hello, book…bookseller. The word is part of the title!

If it were that simple, that innocent, that open of a question, it wouldn’t matter what I said or how I answered because the customer would be genuinely interested in my response. Me saying, “No, I haven’t had a chance,” would be completely accepted.

Most customers don’t want to hear that, can’t even fathom it. “But you work at a bookstore? What do you mean you haven’t read it?”

Well, let’s see. There are twenty-four hours in a day. I work eight hours shifts. That’s eight hours that I’m not being paid to read, but to shelve, to help you, to receive new product and to merchandise. Three days a week I also go take a class which is an hour long (why? I don’t know. I had this crazy concept that I might like to embrace linear thought again. Hah!). I have friends and family that I like to hang out with. I have to prepare food (the house elves don’t come and do it for me). I have a slight addiction to crime dramas. And even when I do get the time to read, in between work, school, friends, food, TV, and homework, it is not enough time to catch up on every single book out there, especially when thousands of new books are being published each year.

I will not live long enough to read every book out there, and I accept that. Often my customers, however, do not. “But this is supposed to be (fill in the blank with: a classic, a great one, a well reviewed one, an Oprah pick, the most popular book in America, a bestseller, etc)!”

At which point I fall back on the slight canned response of, “It’s on my reading list,” “I just haven’t had time,” or “I just need to finish the book I’m on.”

Even then the customer looks at me like I’ve let them down, failed at my job, because I have not read THIS BOOK, and don’t I know that it’s my job to read whatever book this customer might pick so I can tell them about it?

Because the world revolves around the customer, you know. It’s a wonder we don’t all get dizzy and fall off, what with all the different revolving it must do around each person.

Not everyone does this, and some genuinely do want to know if I’ve read it or not. For those I answer truthfully.

For those who just want a yes woman to pacify their own inability to make up their minds or to pat them on the back for making the acceptable choice? I lie like a rug, baby.

I embrace my inner book whore. I embellish the truth.

I tell them what they ultimately want to hear.

“It’s great!” really means “My other customers think it’s great!”

“It’s a very involved plot,” means, “I can’t remember what the review said at all other then something about layers.”

“There’s interesting character development,” means “there must be characters in the book, and they must develop. That’s basic plot structure.”

And on it goes. I’m not going to recommend a book if I’ve heard (overwhelmingly) that it sucks. I’m not going to lie to every customer. But if the customer only wants to hear that they are right, and I’m tired enough and aware enough that I need to make plan, an average unit per transaction, and average dollar per transaction (the things that actually do contribute to what I get paid), I’m going to tell them what they want to hear.

My book whoredom doesn’t extent to my home, my friends, my blog or my outside world. It is simply a response to the stimuli found only in the store environment as fostered by the materialistic society that we live in. People often not only want to buy stuff, but want the assurance that others will covet that which they buy.

So if I’m tired enough, irritable enough, and you’ve got that look in your eye, I’m totally willing to prostitute bookselling integrity to convince you that the book in your hands is the best of the best, the winning literature lottery ticket, and the hottest thing since the DaVinci Code rolled all into one.

And I’ll do it with a smile because this is a socially acceptable practice among booksellers. We all do it: from my blunt coworker to my boss to my president. It’s what some of the public wants to hear, otherwise they don’t want to hear anything at all (and last time I checked we’re not supposed to just walk away from a customer).

Perhaps that’s why I like this blog so much. I don’t have to embellish because I’m not being held to any goal or being paid to move product. It’s just me and my opinions (the content of which is why I’m retaining anonymity), suggestions, and wacky sleep-deprived confessions.

Which may not be exactly what you want to hear. But they are the truth (even if they do take a long, convoluted path to get there), so ask yourself, are you always truthful or above temptation?

What’s your inner whore? C’mon admit it. Don’t be shy (Unless you’re a car whore who works for a car lot because that’s kind of a given).

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Apologies for the mistakes and missing words (I’m sure they’re many), but the pizza and the beer have conspired to overcome my last bit of energy and it’s now bath and bed time. Thank God for Lush body products. And this link? Not a whoredom moment. Nope this is open and honest sharing, and necessity, because pizza boy obviously did not stick around to rub my feet, massage my back and make me all warm and toasty. I guess he was under the impression that his job was just to bring me my pizza. Silly boy.