Titles, Inc.

And the Right Place Is?

Sometime trying to figure out where to shelve a book in the store can be a puzzle. 

We have a wall for books on Illinois, mostly Chicago and its environs, which incidentally is the title of a desirable Chicago book.  There is a strong interest in local books.  There are books on Chicago architecture, Chicago railroads, Chicago botanicals, Chicago theatre, to mention just a few.  However when someone comes in to look for railroad books he expects to find them all together in one section. He will not think to search through a wall of Chicago to find the few RR books tucked in there.  On the other hand, if you want all things Chicago, you want its railway system too.  Similarly, prominent architects belong in the architecture section. Or not?  If he is strongly associated with Chicago, shouldn't he be at home among the streets of Chicago?

Sometimes a known poet writes plays.  T.S. Eliot wrote Murder in the Cathedral.  Should it go on the poetry wall with his other books?  I have it in with plays.  Ezra Pound wrote essays although better known for his poetry.  All shelved in poetry.  But I keep all of Arthur Miller's plays together in fiction.  Talk of inconsistencies. 

Children's books are a problem.  I try to shelve them alphabetically by title because that's how the phone queries come in.  Wind in the Willow?  Pinocchio?  Babar?  Laddie?  Black Beauty?  That works just fine until, as happened last week, the customer want to see all the dog books, and all the horse books.  After she left with her purchase (Andersen's Fairy Tales, don't ask), I decided to group all the dogs and horses together.  What?  You thought we sit and read all day?

If you see me wandering aimlessly about the room with a book in hand, it is because I'm trying to guess where it will get the most attention.  And I hope to remember the decision I made.  I put clues in my data base, but that often doesn't reflect a change of mind.

Today a young man came in and went directly to the shelves of Signed entertainers.  Talk about rearranging.  I had sorted them first alphabetically by entertainer.  Then someone asked if I had any rock stars, and I had to look at each book.  So I rearranged by their specialty.  All singers in a row whether it was Pavarotti or John Denver.  TV stars.  Theatre personalities.  Old timers like Groucho Marx - movies or radio?  No matter, he sold before I found a slot for him.  The young man said, "I saw an autographed Vivien Leigh last time I was in.  Is she sold?"  (By the way, that makes sense grammatically in these circumstances.)  I helped him look, then remembered that I removed her from that section and put her across the room on the shelf with all the movie books.  It seemed the right thing to do at the time.  He was so happy to find her, and held it for a long time before putting it back, and walking out.  Maybe he'll come back a third time.  I'll leave Vivien where she is.

---Florence

It's Snow Joke

You all remember how you can control the weather?  You want it to rain?  Just take your auto to the car-wash, get it spick 'n span shiny clean.  Leave it on the street.  Guaranteed rain.

Apparently I took control of the weather myself today.  A few weeks ago, we had snowy, icy weather.  The ground was so slick, I had to hold onto the cars in the lot as I made my way out.  Falling on the ice in this same lot a year ago (landed as if I were making snow angels, nothing broken, but oh that spinal stenosis!), so I am paranoid about stepping out on ice. 

My husband found the solution in a catalog.  Stretchy things coiled with wire that you pull over the soles of your shoes to give you traction.  I ordered a pair for each of us, in orange so we can find it on the bottom of the coat closet (some of you will understand that.)  By the time our orange stretchies arrived the weather turned mild.  But today! The forecast was for 4"-6" of snow.  Last night we fished out the contraptions, and set them near the door.  Ready!

A teeny drifting of snow.  I carried them along because there was a whole day in front of me for that 4"-6" to accumulate.  And then, a flurry of snow - here it comes!  It came for about eleven minutes, and stopped, with a few floating flakes filling the rest of the day.  That's it.

Those handy dandy orange shoe guards, and I, personally, saved the town from being choked with snow.

---Florence

Framed!

Today a customer, whom I hadn't seen in a while, told me he opened a new office, financial consulting, and did I have any pictures of the stock market?  Yes, I showed him one we had on the wall, a hand colored print of an active cluster of people with a caption telling us it is the British stock market, no date, but late 1800s we guessed.  He liked it - what else?  I showed him an engraving that I thought was the financial district of Chicago.  We took it off the wall for a closer look, and yes, it featured the Board of Trade.  "What else?"  "What else, indeed!  Imagine walking into a book store, and finding two pictures to match your needs.  I'm astonished myself," I said, knowing I'll probably never find another "stock market" art piece.  I've had these so long that the price on the ticket was faded to near oblivion. 

He tried a gambit, recognizing as I did, the faded ink.  "Can you do better on the price?"  "No, absolutely not.  Look at the empty spaces you are leaving me with.  I hate selling pictures after we have artfully arranged them on the wall."   And I meant it.  I have a group of back-up framed pictures, but we have to spend time shifting and rearranging to get a nice balance with the new ones.  I have two pictures everyone wants to buy, but I've fallen in love with them, and removed the prices to claim them as my own.  They are large WW I posters with soldiers holding stacks of books, the posters asking for book donations to send to our boys overseas. 

We have a lot of sheet music too, the old songs with lyrics you remember, the tunes humming in your head as you look at them, and the art work on the covers begging to be framed.  I was in someone's powder room, and the walls were covered with sheet music.  The room was singing. 

I'm reminded now of another room that was hung with framed dust jackets.  Colorful, witty.  But all I could think of was the naked books sitting on a shelf somewhere.  Denuded, devalued, defaced.

---Florence   

 

Play Your Card

When we started in business a loooong time ago, my then-partner arranged for our must-have business card.  Her husband was involved in upper end cosmetics, so Sonja hired one of their advertising artists to design our card.  Personally, I would have walked into a print shop and had a card printed up.  What's the big deal?

Well.  We got a magnificent card.  First of all, it was vertical, unusual at the time.  It was a pale yellow with delicate gold print, and a book logo - a group of books, the spines slightly darker, to look like golden leather.  I was ecstatic.  It was absolutely elegant .  We optimistically printed up 1000.  I showed it to my husband.

He didn't like it.  Why?  Because you can't read it.  Of course you can't read it.  The print was too small, the colors blended.  But it was gorgeous. 

Then Sonja had to leave the book store because her husband's job moved him to LA.  We split the business satisfactorily for both of us.  She got the D.H. Lawrence handwritten post card, and I got the desk and the business cards.  I handed out the cards liberally, painted the town golden, you might say.

My husband prevailed.  The print got larger and browner.  The logo became darker too.  Still a handsome card.  But browns, tans and yellows are not my colors.  Next time around, I changed the colors radically to the card I still use - kept the vertical, with a glossy white background, black legible type, and the books in the corner are a red leather.  A salesman came into the shop trying to sell me new designs for whatever I am currently using.  "How old is your business card?"  I told him the design is about 30 years old.  He assured me it was dated, and asked to see it.  When he had it in hand, he reluctantly agreed that it was fine.

This is all a preamble to what I am getting at.  I need a business card just for my blog address.  I can't remember my blog address.  I had to look it up just now to tell you it has 46 characters in it.  Someone advised going on the Internet, that they do cards for $4.95 for 250, and they have a large assortment of styles to choose from.  Since I want only one line on the card it seemed a nice frugal alternative.  Except that no matter which pretty card I choose, or plain one, I cannot get that long string on one line.  My husband's voice is echoing in my head, "Big Letters".  Heck, it doesn't fit along a horizontal card even with small letters.  Maybe diagonal?  A card you can unfold?

Where is that nifty advertising art designer today?   Help!!!

---Florence

Guard My Book

Why do I love this job?  Because sometimes it makes me laugh so hard.

I've been trying to locate a book for a lady.  It's a bit uncommon, and she told me to buy the $110 copy I told her about.  Darn, it was sold.  I found another copy, and notified her.  This one is $125. I hate when that happens - it's sounds like the old bait and switch.  Sure enough she said suspiciously, "Oh you raised the price."  I said we could wait, another cheaper copy might turn up.  "I'll ask my husband."  She came back to the phone, "He said the people we are giving it to will love it, so go ahead and buy it."  "Oh, a gift," I said, "I'm sorry, it won't get here in time for Christmas."  "It doesn't matter, it's just a gift.  Anyway, we're leaving next week, Jan.2,  so hold it until we come back."  "Sure," I say, "and when will that be?"  "April 12th."

"Um, shouldn't I mail it to you wherever you will be?"  "Why?" she asks, "I'll only have to carry it back.  You have my credit card number so it will be paid for.  What's the problem?"  "No problem, of course I can hold it for you."

All of a sudden worried, she asks, "You're not going out of business, are you?"  Astonished, I answer, "No, no.  The only way I'll go out of business is when I'm dead and they drag me out."  Anxiously, she says, "Be sure to put my name and phone number in it, so they can find me."  I said, "Absolutely." 

I hung up and laughed and laughed.   People are funny.

---Florence

Flawed Logic

A feature in the paper about A New Era In Play tells us on two pages nothing we didn't know before reading it.  It tell us that from birth, children are learning differently from the way we did.  Duh.

TV, video games, electronic toys are today's playthings.  The article by Reed Karaim says, "Good: The best video games and electronic toys can spur a child's imagination."  "Bad:  Real learning requires sustained thought, not the rapid-fire pace of electronic media."

Dismissing his Good, I can say that books, even baby picture books, dolls, tinker toys, building blocks, coloring books can all spur a child's imagination.  You know, all the old-fangled toys.

But the argument called Bad, gives a lot to think about.  Jane Healy, an educational psychologist, believes the electronic media are wiring kids' brains differently.  In responding to the games, the kids are hitting keys or moving the mouse as fast as they can.  She says they are responding on a sensory level.  And it is different from in-depth reasoning.  "Children need to manipulate things in a three-dimensional environment to grow their brain." 

Looking at this electronic filled world, that sounds pretty worrisome.  Do kids still play with baby dolls, dressing and undressing them, wheeling them in tiny buggies, or pushing trucks, or throwing a ball to each other?  Come on, old timer's, you can all think of activities without plug ins, or batteries, or Wiis (whatever that means.)  No, it's all high tech today.

Pretty scary picture for the future of our children.

So why is it, that, including my own brilliant grandchildren, all the little folk I encounter these days are so much more poised, so much more articulate, so much all-around smarter than we were? 

That article hasn't been written yet.

--Florence

Too Bookish

Sometimes enough is enough.  You'd think by now I would know how to sell a book. 

A man asked for books about the social life of royalty and related households.  I had two books, leather bound, on the same subject and he couldn't make a decision.  He asked me to examine them and he'd be back for my opinion.  As it turned out, they were the same text, same translator, from two different publishers, one with an introduction and index, each bound differently, both handsome.  The cheaper one had an easier typeface to read.  When he returned, I had the problem solved.  He agreed to go with the larger print.

Flipping through it he found many references to Napoleon.  " I would like to read more about Napoleon.  Do you have any?"  I showed him the Napoleon in French.  That pleased him.  "This will be a challenge."  And I showed him a two vol. set he liked too.  He piled them up.  "How about books on gardening with pictures of flowers in color?"  I gave him a lovely book with watercolors.  "This is charming."  I gave him one on lilies.  He loved it.  I brought out more, each one as pretty as the one before.  I hauled down from the top shelf, a huge one, each page a gorgeous flower.  "How about English gardens?" he asked.  I rearranged my desk/table to add the books on formal English gardens, Italian gardens. 

"What about architecture?  Do you have books on architecture?"  "Yes," I said, "and I will show them to you on your next visit.  You have enough to look at right now."  He turned pages.  "My mother left me all her gardening books.  I suppose I should look through those before I buy others," he said, handing me back the "charming" garden book.  One by one, he discarded them.  "I'll never look at the French Napoleon, I know.  Or this set.  But show it to me again next time.  "  I removed them.  That left a thin flower book and the French memoirs.

"You are taking the court memoirs," I said firmly.  If he refused that, I would throw it at him.  Yes, he wanted that, and yes, this little flower book. 

I had overwhelmed him with such a bounty.  I should have stopped after the French Napoleon.  Or the 2 vol. Napoleon memoirs, or the charming watercolor book.  Or the English landscape.  Or the huge folio of flower portraits.  See.  I can't stop.  You show a spark of interest, and I am only too happy to share my treasures with you.  Until you choke with the profusion of them. 

One day I'll get the hang of salesmanship.

---Florence

Winter Woes

Driving home, my husband noticed the blinking light on the dashboard, indicating Window Washer Fluid low.  Since the jug of fluid was in the shed closed firmly by the snow, it made sense to buy a new bottle.  And a large bag of salt to replace the empty one for the impending snow storms in the forecast.

We stopped at the large chain drugstore whose name I won't mention again, especially since they were out of both salt and washer fluid.  "Wouldn't you know," I sniffed, "Such gross mismanagement. Here it is, the middle of December and they didn't lay in a supply of critical winter items."  We drove on to the huge neighborhood Home Depot.  Art came out empty-handed.  "What?" I exclaimed, "Them, too?"

There was the competitor super drugstore.  We drove a little further.  It didn't take more than a few steps for Art to be back at the car.  "The boy collecting the carts said they are all out."

Are all the warehouses out of salt and fluid?  Ladies, I ask you.  Would we let our stores run out of such a winter staple if we were in charge?

Well.  On the other hand, if there was a frenzy to stock up, it might be that the home-owners had allowed themselves to be caught short too.  Still there is the division of labor regarding salting one's property.  The woman's job is to stand in the doorway, and say, "I not walking out on the ice."  And the man's job is to say, "Of course not, darling, I will scatter the salt."  I hasten to add, that particular generalization does not apply to my house.  By the time I yawn myself awake, the porch has been prepared for my descent.  Still, what will we do for the next storm?  Where's the salt?

--Florence 

Writ By Hand

Here it is, the stupidest thing I read today.  If you have enough money, you can spend it any idiotic way you choose.  The headline:  Hand-written Rowling book sells for $3.9 mil.

JK Rowling wrote, by hand, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a wizardry story book connected to the Harry Potter series. It has 157 pages with illustrations and is bound in brown Moroccan leather, embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones.

The auction was held at Sotheby's in London.  And Amazon had the high bid.  Do you know how many people were involved in this sublime foolishness?  There were "four or five bidders in the room and the same number on the phones."  That adds up to eight or ten people fighting to spend nearly four million dollars for a hand written made-to-order collectible.  If it were only one-of-a-kind...but she repeated it six more times! She made seven copies and gave six of them "to people closely connected to the Harry Potter books."  Will each of those six people be able to turn their gift into the same gold?  I doubt it.  Did Amazon know its copy is not unique when they bid on it?   

Rowling is donating the $3.9 million to a charity she co-founded called The Children's Voice to "help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe."  That's the only part I like about this ridiculous news story.  Amazon's investment is going to a charitable cause.  Who gets the deduction, Rowling?  Amazon has to get $4 mil worth of publicity out of it.  Well, it's working.  I mentioned them four times already.

So, listen, don't phone me about your old book.  I don't want to buy your old book.  I want one you wrote by hand yesterday.

--Florence

Sing, Sing

"Adorable".  The dictionary might say differently, but my definition is: a school's Song Festival delivered by the Kindergarten, first, and second grade students.  I attended the First Annual at my granddaughter's school, known for its dual language program.  In this rather affluent neighborhood the school teaches Spanish as well as English and the student body is diverse beyond Hispanic and English speaking children.  The children assembled for this program were of all races and nationalities.

The Kindergartners started the program.  Some as young as four stood in front of an enthusiastic audience of mothers, grandmothers and a sprinkling of men of varied ages.  Several of these little children actually sang.  One young fellow casually kept his hands in his pockets singing occasionally, and moving to the beat.  Some looked scared, but bravely stared out at us.  One little boy looked absolutely paralyzed.  In all, a normal group performance.

I hope on reaching first grade they will make the leap in self confidence as the group singing next.  They were good.  Most sang lustily.  Some were still just moving their lips, breathing out the music. Startling difference in sizes here, from little boys to tall girls.

Then the second graders.  They were into it. The songs were choreographed with a lot of hand and arm movements acted out with zest.  Their pleasure with singing was palpable. 

I looked around at the large assemblage of family members.  Like me, they were smiling broadly, enjoying the event, even though each of us was focused on the one little person who was our reason for being there.

--Florence