Ink and Bone

by Rachel Caine

Story summary: Burners of books, hoarders of books, preservers of books, eaters of books. The world is now all about books and the flow of information, with the Great Library of Alexandria on top. You'd think that would be a good thing, wouldn't you?

Why You Will Like This Book:

• BOOKS!!!
• Schools for learning cool things!!
• Relationships slowly growing from enmity to friendship!
• And excitement and adventure and romance and mystery and conspiracy and all that.

And Why You Might Not:

• It's hard to judge some of the aspects of this book until we see how it turns out in the sequels.
• There is a important gay relationship present, if that bothers you.

84, Charing Cross Road

by Helene Hanff

Why You Will Like This Book:

• These are real letters, sent back and forth between an American woman and the employees of a British bookshop during the post-WWII period.
• For book lovers especially, this is so sweet and cozy. It's filled with references to awesome books, and a proper appreciation for their covers and binding.
• And it's just a really sweet story, although a little bittersweet as well.

And Why You Might Not:

• I can't really think of any reason, especially since it's so short that it'll hardly take any of your time. I guess if you're too young to enjoy a story where nothing really happens?

More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

by Jen Campbell

Why You Might Like This Book:

• Hilarious, sometimes even hysterical. Man, people are weird sometimes.
• Makes you feel very glad you read.

And Why You Might Not:

• It's a really slim book, and some of the entries are even duplicates from the first book.
• A bunch of the entries are dependent on you knowing a bit about literature (e.g. "Do you have The Girl With the Dragon and the Baboon?" is not going to be funny unless you know what the original book was called).

Texts From Jane Eyre

by Mallory Ortberg

Why You Will Like This Book:

• If you've read your fair share of Classics and want to read someone parodying them, playing off them, and generally having a good time with them, all in witty text-speak, then this is the book for you.
• She has modern/internet humor down.

And Why You Might Not:

• What with it being not very long to begin with, and then on top of that written in texting style, well... it's funny and all, but very light. I almost didn't count it for my book count, until I realized I counted Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores, and they are of much the same ilk.

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores

by Jen Campbell

Thoughts: An absolutely hysterical, and kind of sad, compendium of quotes from real, live customers in real, live bookstores. Mostly taken from Jen Campbell's personal experience working in UK bookstores, but also from many examples sent in by other booksellers across North America.

You've got the simply funny, like the many items people somehow thought could be found in a bookstore, or the weird people looking for a portal to another dimension.

There's the actually kind of cool: "Customer: If I had a bookstore, I'd make the mystery section really hard to find." (pg. 20) It made want to design a really cool bookstore where every section was somehow themed.

There's the ones that make you despair of humanity's future, like the story of the person who had a tantrum over not being able to read Breaking Dawn (pg. 15), or the many examples of complete literary ignorance, or the mother who told her child, "I don't know why you read; it'll never get you anywhere" (pg. 54).

Some of it seemed so bad as to be actually unbelievable, but some I have experienced myself in my time in customer service, such as: "Customer: I read a book in the sixties. I don't remember the author, or the title. But it was green, and it made me laugh. Do you know which one I mean?" (pg. 57)

Summary: Short and sweet, and immensely entertaining.

Grade: 4 stars