Getting to Little Rock--an Unpleasant Trip turns Pleasant at the 11th Hour (Yes, Literally)

I'm on the first of several weekend trips, which I guess constitutes vacation. The first is a visit to Hot Springs Village for a 50th anniversary party. We took an unnamed airline to Little Rock, through Atlanta. It reminds me how bad service can be in the modern age.

First our initial flight to Atlanta was cancelled, and we were automatically rebooked. Then the connecting flight was cancelled. Then the next connecting flight was three hours late to leave. Then our luggage showed up on a different flight a half hour later. We were not flying budget, having put almost $500 per person into these flights.

The killer was that at no point along the way could we get us to tell us anything. "Go to the machine! Go to the machine!", every employee gestured. Admittedly, they were all very short staffed, and for some reason, an outfit of jeans and tee shirts didn't make them any friendlier, despite the probably convincings of a paid consultant.

I'm not singling out this airline. I had two different trips to the east coast in the last three months, filled with cancellations, no explanations, and my favorite, false apologies. That's when you say "I'm sorry" with sort of a sneer, or after all the problems, the admittedly under-pressure phone operator tries to convince you that the service was great.

When I talk to these folks, I immediately say, "I know this is not your doing. I know you have no control over this", but the key is that you will never ever talk to someone who makes the decisions. It really makes me never want to travel again, which is good for all my customers at Boswell, I guess. (And no, I'm not bragging about the incredible service at the bookstore. I know we have our issues. I forgot to reassign someone to check our info address when our regular went on vactaion. My bad! But still, nothing as bad as what I just went through.)

There was one highlight, of course, and it turned not to be the infomercial for a classic collection of L. Ron Hubbard's short stories at one of the bookstores, being piped out in five minute intervals. There were a lot of bookstores or bookstore equivalents at the Atlanta terminal. I'm not sure who was "hosting them", despite being under various nameplates. I felt bad for the seafood restaurant who gave us an atrocious overpriced meal. It was an airport franchise, but after that meal, I would never, ever, ever eat at one of their actual restaurants.

No, browsing the airport bookstores was not a highlight.

No, it was looking over, in our 12th hour on the road, and seeing, in a sea of uninteresting very commercial novels and ebook readers (yes, some, but not as many as I expected), a copy of Bo Caldwell's The Distant Land of My Father. It reminded me that even though Caldwell is every other thing my Nancy B. (one of my favorite regulars) and I talk about, I still haven't read her new book coming in late September, City of Tranquil Light. Yes, it's another China novel!

So I thought, "Why not?" and asked the woman how she was enjoying the book. S. told me that she had read a bunch of bad books in a row and the person at her favorite bookstore, WordsWorth Books and Co. (it's on our short list of must visits) said, "It isn't new but I love it so much and you have to read it." Where do I find that bookseller?

We then had this wonderful 20 minute conversation of books we love and those we didn't (S. hated Middlesex, but she wrote down The Lonely Polygamist anyway. It's not that similar, just a hook for me really, especially because the thing that made Eugenides difficult was some of the factual errors in the science. I know how that is, having just read a book where the author has someone go from Madison to Chicago by train. Why not bus? Why not bus? There is a bus!) and S. came away with a page of book recs, and we came away with some restaurant suggestions.

When S. told me how much she liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I convinced her to move The History of Love (event with Nicole Krauss at Boswell on 10/27)to the top of her pile (she already had it!) and then of course, told her to run out and buy (order in) Frederick Reiken's Day for Night. She might wait till paper, but I think, after our conversation, that she will trust me and buy it from WordsWorth.

It made the whole trip worthwhile. Note to airline personnel. If things are going particularly badly for me, find your best reader and get me involved in a conversation. I'll forgive just about anything after that.

Did you ever Try Handselling a Book and Realize You Don't Have any Copies...

So I'm talking to a customer and the perfect book suggestion comes to me. The only problem is, when I get to the shelf, we don't have it. Not just that, we've never had it.

In some cases, I caught these gaffes quickly and it's paid off. We have very nice sales of The Distant Land of My Father, by Bo Caldwell, and I think in 75% of the cases, I put the book in someone's hand. Others I spotted yesterday. And only time will tell if it's worth it to bring these titles in. But now that I'm on the floor quite a bit, I have lots more opportunities than when I was a buyer, and I seem more persuasive than when I was the manager in Mequon many years ago.

The key on these things is, you really have to prove that you can sell the book. "It's your job, not your library" I used to say to eager booksellers who spent way too much time telling me what we were missing, instead of trying to sell what we had. And though as the owner, perhaps I can carry whatever I want, it's been my thought that I should have the same expectations of myself that I have of everyone else, if not higher.

1. The Golden Gate, by Vikram Seth.

First I decided it was perfect for Lucy, the daughter of my friendstomer (friend/customer) Polly. I thought I'd ordered in one for stock too, so I brought it up at the Waukesha County book club presentation I did today. I had already convinced Cyndie (the member who set this up) to read it, but when I checked, I still hadn't been secure enough to bring in a stock copy. We sold about 30 copies of this book, a novel of two friends in 1970's San Francisco that is completely told in sonnets, when I made it my backlist push several years ago. It's a beautiful book, both structurally and emotionally, and whether you love it or hate it you have to agree--you've likely never read anything like it.

2. Village School, by Miss Read.

I hadn't even thought about Miss Read in years, until a certain retired sports hero's wife told me it was her secret passion. I thought, "Hey, I'm working with every Miss Read fan I know", that being Bev and Anne. We brought in several and are hoping it is as successful as another passion we share (well, Bev, me and Amie in this other case), Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking. After seeing a Schwartz store sell two a year if we were lucky, we've sold about 20 this year.

Which brings me to an author I thought was perfect for my Miss Read fan...

3. An Unsuitable Attachment, by Barbara Pym (et al).

I think we're due for another Barbara Pym revival and I'm ready to start it. It's another author that Bev, Anne, and I share (oh, and John E., who also loves Colwin). In this case, the story is about Sophie, the vicar's wife, who takes on the task of matching the eligible Rupert Stonebird to her sister Penelope, only she doesn't figure on competition from new arrival Iantha Broome. The 50's books are different from the 80's books (where there are even some gay characters) but they both share a profound human insight and a marvelous sense of humor. This is the bridge novel, the 7th novel that was somehow rejected by her publisher and led to a very long dry spell.

4. In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden, by Kathleen Cambor. My recent post on Mark Gates reminded me what a great book club book that was, and how little I was on the floor to hand-sell it. Best of all, it's still in print and available as a real book, as opposed to print on demand. During our Raymond Carver event, I started to talk up David Leavitt's Martin Bauman (Leavitt's veiled story about his professional relationship with Gordon Lish), only to find it was $21.95 and POD. Now it might be a perfectly nice book, but it's about $7 too high for my customers, and I was a little nervous about the quality to order it in.