A friend went into her local Books Etc. to have a look at a book recommended to her (although she won't be a friend for much longer if she continues to go into her local Books Etc. looking for books recommended to her - Are you reading this!?). Anyway, it was The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, published in 1999 since when it has been on the New York Times bestseller list and translated into 33 languages. She asked the assistant for The Power of Now by somebody Eckhart. The assistant had not only not heard of it but failed to find it on their database and confidently announced that it didn't exist and she was mistaken.
I knew about the book instantly so this obviously and conclusively proves the inherent superiority of independent bookshops! Or sort of. Case closed my friends, case closed. Ha!
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wimbledon Books, etc, still has the Savage Detectives in its Crime section.
ReplyDeleteRich
This may be apocryphal, and it definitely counts as an urban legend, but on asking in Waterstones whether or not they had a copy of "Order of the Phoenix", the person on the till spent a while going through the computer and then asked "I can't find anything here, when did you place your order, Mr Phoenix?"
ReplyDeleteFile that one under the old journalist's category of a story "too good to check"...
When asking for a book on ARCHITECTURE at Borders Charing Cross Road I found the "bookseller" typing ARKITECTURE into the computer...
ReplyDeletemonkeys indeed.
Just in case you're wondering Mr. Powell, (given our discussion earlier today)- the above commenter is NOT me. But it's a nice and weird coincidence,eh?
ReplyDeleteBesides, I wouldn't go to Borders for a book on Architecture. But then where can you go now that the Triangle Bookshop has closed down?
Sorry to distract from the Monkeys
F
Forget dumping them as a friend fro going to Books Etc. Dump them for buying a book by Tolle.
ReplyDelete