More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
Book one review here! Mini Review: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
Summary
‘Customer (holding up a book): “What’s this? The Secret Garden? Well, it’s not so secret now, is it, since they bloody well wrote a book about it!'”
From “Did Harry Potter kill Hitler?” to “Can we play cricket in your bookshop?”, a selection of the most ridiculous conversations from the shop floor. Bewildering, hilarious and slightly alarming, this is a book for dedicated booksellers and booklovers everywhere.
Illustrated by the Brothers McLeod, this collection includes queries and incidents from bookshops (and libraries) around the world, and even a section of Weird Things Customers Say at ‘Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops Book Signings.’
Thoughts
Well I enjoyed book one and I figured book two would be much the same. Lo and behold, it was! There were still some references to books or cultural things that I could see sailing over the heads of people less familiar with reading overall. For example, the customer looking for the book about a boy with autism and a dog and called “the curious something something…” would have had me chiming in with “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” with the other 3 booksellers in that moment.
Some of the humor in the quotes that rely on knowing what a book is called or is about or when an author was alive in order to get the joke could definitely stump some folks. There were one or two in here that I didn’t parse out, which was partly from the colloquialisms used as well since they’re mostly UK based. Despite that, the bulk of these were accessible and amusing. Some were just really sweet and funny, some were annoying enough to grind teeth, and some were just baffling.
This book includes a section about quotes specifically from book signing events for the first book. If there has ever been a challenge for weird folks to come up with bizarre things to say, that was apparently it! That section was short, but it was gold.
One of my favorites that made me legitimately laugh out loud was the conversation about buying a new vs. used copy of Fifty Shades of Grey 😅😂
My Book Joy 
Oh, fun! I didn’t know there was a second book in this series. I really enjoyed the first one though, so I’ll have to look for this one too!
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