Wish list tag TBR for kirjakko

Edited 03/04/23: Not as enjoyable as the diary/confession of a bookseller books but a quick read.

This has arrived safely in Edinburgh! I'll be handing this on at the convention.

Wow! Wow! Wow! What a parcel of joy I got today from my UK mailbox-keeper bookfrogster. Apart from two bookshop books I got BC-stickers, labels, release bags (got a catch and a new member of a book released earlier today in Edinburgh, a reminder that wild releases should be done more often), pins and a stamper! Wait a minute, is the device you make stamps with really called a stamper, or is that the person who stamps stamps with it? Thank you so much, brunton11.
Looking forward to reading this, although for the life of me I do not understand how people still come to his shop after all the insults he has written about them.

Took this along to be my midsummer read at a friend's cottage, but I've mostly read news as Tsar Putin's bloodhound seemed to have turned against his Master and got as close as 200 km from Moskow without any opposition and then he decided to stop his mutiny and take his men back home. There is certainly a Russian Play going on, but who is the playwright here remains to be seen. EDIT: A month later the bloodhound - along with the flight crew - dropped down with a flying object and was declared dead.
I just noticed that this is in fact a signed copy I'm holding and in mint condition, I might add. And lo and behold, Covid-19 and the lockdown has softened Mr Bythell enough to admit that his books may be offending and that he actually misses his customers, 'the human interaction". Gosh, all through the first book I wondered what kind of a masochist buys a sh-bookshop, when he obviously hates people. Perhaps the fact that people sent him cheques with no demands, just to keep his small, independent shop going through those troubled years, made him more humble. At least he didn't call them morons - yet (I've just finished the introduction).

Finished the book yesterday, but was too tired to write anything. This was a fast read, slim book as it is, and obviously written because the publisher wanted more of what the common reader wanted to read, but Mr Bythell's head was rather empty by the time, having already written a sequal to something which was meant to be a one-off.
I learned that elderly bearded men are friends of the erotica. Always bearded. Two of my three brothers have beards, I have to ask them if they also wear long coats.
I wonder what is wrong with knitting with dog hair, because it is very warm and if the wool is made out of your own shedding best friend it warms you also from the inside long after you've been departed, but Mr Bythell classifies this under "utterly useless time-wasting activities". According to him, people who are into any craft are empty-nesters or retired women who are looking for something to fill the void. He is probably a pitiful wanker who uses his hand for one free-time activity only, because crafts interest women of all ages and also some men. Even if his clientel of craft section is elderly women, why belittle them - elderly lonely men stick to drinking in pubs, is that a better hobby? (Have to go to work now, to be continued...).

As you can judge from the previous JE, Bythell manages to enrage a normally docile reader with his arrogant comments, and I'm not even a knitter, nor retired and definately not elderly. I would, however, love to make a quilt one day...
I used to work in a bookstore back in the Dark Middle Ages, but as I was misplaced in the linguistics department all customers not asking for the time rose a sweat on my forehead. I even did the training for licensed bookshop keepers as my parents told me that one has to have a profession and there was no training for vet nurses in Finland at that time. Well, I then left the sophisticated environment of the bookshop for a career in vet nursing when training for it became an option, but way back then my salary sank and everybody thought I had made a silly choice and would come to my senses with age. Then booktrade sank and people who had worked in that bookstore for over 30 years were given The Sack as it got a new (Swedish) owner. The bookstore is a pale shadow of its glory days, has sold its soul and best window to Starbucks and is struggling. My silly choice wasn't all that bad - pets are perhaps more popular than ever and I have no fears of being unemployed. And I have my wee book nook in our waiting room, a sh-bookshop for animal-related books. I have to say that it's more a hobby than a serious source of income and I'm happy I do not have to try to make a living selling books only. Over the years (since 1996) booksales have gone down, with the popularity of the net people do not want to read a whole book about dog behaviour or training, because they can ask everything from their Facebook or whatever groups (Facebook is for us oldies, I've been told) and breed books, which used to be so popular, have lost their place in the bookshelves to hi-fi equipment or some other electronic device.
(To be continued with the first MISER in my book nook from a few months ago).

Ok, The Miser. I'm still furious to her. She was an old lady who took her old Border Collie to us for acupuncture. She has been to us before, perhaps a year ago. Acupunture treatments are often given as a series and this was her third weekly visit.
"You have a lot of books here."
"Yes, it's a second-hand bookshop of animal-related books. I used to be a bookshop-keeper."
"So did I! I've worked in bookshops in Helsinki and France."
It turned out that we both had worked in the Academic Bookstore, but she had already moved to France when I began my career. I asked if she remembered a good friend from the Academic, now about to turn 85 yrs. Of course she did, everybody knew and liked Elisabeth. I told her I was going to Elisabeth's birthday the following week.
"Oh, could you take her a card from me? Will it be after our next appointment?"
"Yes and yes. Oh, she will be so glad to get a card from the past!"
"Oh, you have books about Border Collies. May I have a look at them?"
She compared them and chose one. Never asked the price, which was 22€. The book was in mint condition and signed by the author, published about 25 yrs ago.
All was fine, or so I thought.
The next time she came, I had taken photocopies for her of a magazine article about our friend Elisabeth, telling of her long career in the Academic Bookstore, written when she turned 80. I gave it to the lady when she went in with her dog, as it's good to have something to read when waiting for those needles to take effect (circa 45 mins).
When she came out, she gave me back the article and said in a cold voice that she didn't want to keep it. I was a bit taken aback, normal people would say thank you, and toss the thing away at home, if they didn't want it. But it was a very warm story about a person we both liked, so something was wrong here. She then opened her rucksack and drew out the book she had bought the last time.
"I bought this book last week. I thought you had a flea-market here {and waved her hand to the general direction of my book nook, looking all arrogant and angry}, but later I saw from the receit that you had charced 22€ for it! For a book over twenty years old. That is way too much. I looked and Amazon has it for 12€. You never mentioned the price!"
And she was acting like I should be blamed that she never asked the price or had thought we were a flea-marked and as if I had conned her in some way, because Amazon had a lower price. Most people would have been offended, if they had chosen a book and I would have said:
"Mind you, it is TWENTY-TWO euros!" as if I had thought they could not afford it.
I should have said that our normal policy is buy books back half the price they have been (so far nobody has wanted to return books to us, but this is what I have planned for that inevitable day somebody wants to sell a book back), but her accusing attitude, and coming from somebody who has worked in the book trade, I said that we are not a flea-market, but a veterinary clinic with a sh-bookshop, but if she REALLY felt she had been mislead, I will give her her money back. The whole sum. She looked pleasently surprised, but while I was writing her receit, mumbled:
"And I didn't particularly like the last chapter..."
I was thinking "And I'll show you a last chapter, you'll never get an appointment time from us as long as I am the one who answers the phone. Fully booked 'till Christmas 2030." Well, it was the last appointment of the series of treatments anyhow.
"And I'd like to buy a bag of that joint supplement your vet was recommending."
Little horns grew out of my head. That supplement is very good, but costly. A bag which lasts for two months costs 86€. Should I ask if she REALLY wanted it? Again, she did not ask the price, again I told her what the total sum was (like the time before) and she paid and turned to leave. Then she turned back and gave me an envelope, saying in a commanding voice:
"And if you would be KIND enough to give my card to Elisabeth."
Of course I was. And told Elisabeth the whole story.

Speaking of Elisabeth, she will get to read this next, as I will be driving past her house this evening.

I'm also taking part of the Helmet 2023 -challenge with this. The book tells about a small town. Wigtown is small.

Elisabeth's daughter returned a bagful of books to me and said her Mom had been too tired to write her comments on them. As she does not have a computer, she has previously left little notes between each book and commented them and I have made AF's JEs out of them.
Elisabeth is going to a cataract operation next week, so I hope it was only due to having difficulties writing the comments and nothing else, because she used to like writing those notes and giving feedback.

Finally this wishlist book gets to move house. I noticed that there are other Finnish wishers, too, so it might make a proper Finntour.

Thank you for a wishlist book, kirjakko! This copy is even signed by author!

This could or perhaps should have been titled How Not To Act In Bookshop. For some reason I expected something more positive. What was I thinking! When narrowing people down to customer types Bythell also reinforces the stereotype of the grumpy, misanthropic bookseller.