Tag Archives: bookshops

Curse you, Christian Fiction!

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Those of you who run bookstores will understand whereof I speak. You will laugh knowingly at this question.

WHY THE HELL ARE THE CHRISTIAN FICTION SHELVES ALWAYS DISORGANIZED?

The people who shop Christian fiction tend to fall into a certain demographic: female, circling retirement age on one side or the other, sweet, watching their pennies, and looking for the latest of some series. I’m waiting for the day when a writer realizes the market for Christian Amish fantasy space exploration novels is still wide open.

Don’t get me wrong; I read Christian fiction, some for enjoyment, some for sarcasm factor. C. S. Lewis changed my life, but I’ve also enjoyed an occasional aga saga (that’s a British term for a domestic novel) here and there. We’ll not talk about the Left Behind series; observation suggests that opening such a dialogue is the fastest way to start a fist fight at a church’s fellowship supper.

But it is not so much the writing as the selling of them that I now query: if the customers are sensible, quiet, gentle people, then why are these bookshelves so eternally … untidy? As in the B’s are visiting the Q’s and the pocket romances are sliding behind the Gilbert Morrises? (And that’s a BIG space to hide behind; he’s got his kids writing now, sigh.)

One night I spent two hours re-alphabetizing, stacking, assigning “this far and no farther shall your boundaries be” spaces to Okes, Morrises, and Dekkers, feeling vaguely Genesis 1 about the whole thing as I parsed into order what had already been created.

I went to bed with those books lined up straight and tall as soldiers in the army of the Lord (not the Joseph Kony one). A few days later I brought a stack of new acquisitions over to shelve, and it looked as though someone had taken a leaf blower to the place. Bs and Q’s openly fraternizing, pocket romances hanging with Copeland westerns…..

I glanced suspiciously at a mother-daughter combo, Mom a dignified woman bent with age in a twin sweater set, saying “read that one” as her daughter, blond highlighted hair sculpted into perfect little “I am a teacher” waves, moved a stack of books from her arms one by one back onto the shelves.

Willy-nilly, in random order. They looked up and smiled at me in a friendly way before returning to their task.

It’s enough to make a bookslinger lose faith.

Just an Update

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Jack and I have talked it over, and we figure this blog should run Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Jack will be handling Wednesdays. I enjoy writing the blogs, and it’s so nice to hear from people who like reading them. But the shop is getting messy while we putter at the computer…..

Today, just for fun, I’m rerunning a post that elicited the most comments (and likes) to date. It’s also really snarky, so it’s good for Christmas. Teehee.

DEAR JAMES PATTERSON (June 26)

Dear Mr. Patterson,

I’m sure your mom loves you; probably you’re a nice man who is good to dogs and small children, and you try not to run over any manatee in your private pontoon boat near your inlet coastal home.

But frankly, dude, I am so over you.

My husband and I run a used bookstore, and not a week passes that one of three things doesn’t happen:

(Sorry, did you follow that okay? I’ve read a couple of your books, so understand that you prefer simple syntax.)

1)      The door opens and someone staggers in bearing a box full of battered mystery and thriller paperbacks; about 1/3 of them are yours. The others will be Mary Higgins Clark, Danielle Steel, or Patricia Cornwall. (Not that your private life is any of our business, mind.) The person trading these in will dump them on the table and head straight for classics, waving a dismissive hand behind him- or herself. “These aren’t mine; a friend was moving and said I could take them. Never read trash like that. Have you got any Hemingway First Editions?”

2)      The door opens and a customer comes in asking for you (your books, I mean; we all know you don’t get to Southwest Virginia very often.) I point out the shelf you share with John Grisham (again, your private life is your own) where we now stash you for $4 a paperback, $6 a hardback; it just saves time, not having to price you every day. The person scans quickly, then frowns. “These are old. I want the newest one. Why don’t you have it if you have all these?”

3)      The phone rings and someone offers to sell us “a really valuable set of books.” Three times in five, sir, they are talking about an entire hardback collection of you. We explain that we don’t buy books for cash, and they become irate. “This is a really popular author! Everybody reads him!” Yes, we know. We have a growing stack of this popular author’s older hardbacks creeping up the wall in one corner, because they outgrew that Grisham/Patterson shelf. One day some of our foster kittens were playing nearby, and the pile collapsed. You just missed committing multiple felinicides, James me lad. Wouldn’t that have made you feel terrible?

So, Mr. Patterson, we just want you to know–and no hard feelings–that we kind of hate you. Nothing personal, but you make us feel like book pimps instead of erudite scholars. Plus, your customers are so … loyal. We suggest a Kava, plead with them to try a Jance, lead them to Scottoline, even beg them to consider Hillerman or Stabenow. We extol variety as the spice of life.

Nothing works. It’s your spiciness they crave, Mr. P, you who have filled used bookstores everywhere with your 1,2,3, nursery rhyme titles, with your “same-plot-different-characters” smoke, mirrors, and adverbs routine. You are giving the readers exactly what they want.

{Sigh}. And that’s why we hate you.  So now you know, and I hope you can still sleep at night, riddled with all that guilt.

Sincerely, Wendy and Jack, proprietors, Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books

P.S. Please do not send any of those men who read your novels professionally for ideas, to rub us out. We are small town people and would have no defense. Thank you.