The long-suffering bookseller.

Today Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell goes on sale on U.S. shores. Campbell, who worked in Ripping Yards and Edinburgh Books, began collecting deathless patron queries heard on the job; her experiences confirm that booksellers have endured much. One sample:

Customer: I read a book in the eighties. 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?

Here is a BBC Open Book piece on the book.

Campbell is now writing a sequel and invites submissions from booksellers and librarians.

Rolled dough.
The noble librarians on the Fiction-L list have compiled a list of book titles and authors' names that their patrons have mangled. Take a look here.

My favorite is the late author "Rolled Dough," whose birthday is coming up on September 13. Mr. Roald Dahl (seen at left) might have been surprised at this unique version of his name...

(Hat tip to Sarah Johnson).