Ack! Sorry! It’s not letting me edit all the bold away!
I have no book related questions, but I do try to buy from independent book stores when I get a chance. (As well as any non-hugo-mongus chain stores. I try to deal with family owned businesses when I can.)
If any one here works at an indy and they have a websight, post it here. Dopers are voracious readers.
Do you have a first edition of the Bible, Talmud and Koran? More importantly, are the 2003 Far Side Calendars in yet? 
I worked in a B. Dalton bookstore from 95-97 (where I also met my beloved who was the assistant manager!). I love books, love to read, I was like an acoholic working in a liquor store. I got in trouble a LOT for reading at work!
I’m surprised no one has mentioned “strip” books. When the paperbacks that don’t sell are due to be sent back to the publisher, we would gather them up and rip the front cover off. The front covers would be sent back to the publisher and the rest of the books were to be thrown away. Our store management was lenient enough to pretty much give us free run over the strip books, it was fabulous! (I have heard that other stores aren’t that generous and the coverless books must be taken to the trashbin post haste!)
The pay was absolutely lousy, I started at 5 bucks an hour and after a year, I was given a princely raise to 5.15. I eventually got a job offer at a tech firm in another state and took the assistant manager boyfriend with me. I still remember the regional manager asking me with a look of absolute befuddlement in his eyes WHY we were leaving. It’s the money, stupid! If working in a bookstore paid enough to live, I would never have left.
I don’t miss retail at all, I have nightmare memories of leaving work at 6:00 on Christmas Eve, driving to my mom’s house, spending Christmas day with her and then leaving the day after Christmas to get to work by 1. Brutal.
My favorite wacky request was for a book on “19th century French wood working” which was completely beyond the scope of our simple “books in print” look up system at the time.
Oh, the bookstore was also the place where I met my first shoe fetishist who tried to steal my black leather flats, but that’s another story.
shirley - www.left-bank.com is the bookstore I work at (only independent general one in MO left!). We are more than willing to take e-mail orders, phone orders, and will ship the books to you (and I’m the one doing the shipping, so let me know that you’re smdb and I’ll be happy 
I’ll write a little note or something!). We can get almost anything in print and sometimes out of print stuff (though that’s a pain in the ass if I say so myself). We’re basically holding on by the skin of our teeth, so we love people who say they love the independents!
btw, for all those B&N and Borders out there, how often do you guys have author events? We generally have one or two a week. Jimmy Carter was here last fall, Bruce Campbell is coming this month, Salmon Rushdie is in the works as well. Lots of local authors and various people as well. Makes it fun, especially since a lot of them are authors I wouldn’t otherwise have read.
Most of our author events go to the “flagship” store in the area, which is not our store. We’re more likely to have an author wander in and start signing stuff, or less well-known authors do a signing. Sorry for not responding, the board gerbils aren’t always good and responsive
Is it true you hide books by conservatives? Sean Hannity was explaining the other day on his radio program that fans may have to ask the clerks for his book because bookstore workers are usually liberal and often hide books by conservative authors.
Lessee, you mean the Anne Coulter book which is on the bestseller display right in front of the store by the Sean Hannity book, which is also on the bestseller display right in front of the store?
Icerigger…we most certainly do not hide books by conservatives! Generally what we have on the shelves is what we have in the store. What’s a lot more likely is that we just don’t stock the item because we’re liberal (and I’m just speaking for my bookstore, Left Bank books, and yes it does have something to do with the political leaning…). We wouldn’t order a book then hide it; that’s counterproductive. We just don’t order it in the first place!
But we’re always happy to order any book, no matter the title or author, as long as someone asks
Honestly, the only time we don’t have a bestseller out is when we run out of it cause too many sell. Although us evil liberals DO put the books by conservatives all the way in the BACK OF THE STORE.
…Of course, that’s cause the Political Science section is back there, which is where they go…
OR SO THE LIBERALS WANT YOU TO THINK!
You forgot the Lodge Meeting of Liberal Hippy Treehuggers Who Hate America And Work In Bookstores To Suppress The Thoughts Of Really Real True Americans By Which We Mean Conservatives again, didn’t you, Siv?
Have you ever had sex in the back on a big stack of books and then giggled as you sold those same books to unsuspecting people?
roflmao!!!
No, in fact I haven’t, thanks for the suggestion though!
Plus, the back room where all the overstock is has glass windows into the store…kinda hard for privacy there
elshatan…yes that’s exactly it, that’s our deep secret organization, now I’m going to have to kill everyone who’s read this thread…now I’m going to have to smoke pot in front of you all to somehow make you forget this whole conversation woohahahaha!
I think the most conservative book we have in there is Ambling Into History about Dubya, and I just find the title hilarious! That one got relegated to the bottom shelf of the face-out new hardbacks. Not many people ask for conservative books, but most of the time when they do it’s for some conservative relative and we stand there racking our brains trying to come up with a satisfactory title we might have. It’s not easy, let me tell you!
** Shirley, **
Didn't this year's box say it was the last year?Ok, this is stupid, but I have to ask to put to rest a rumor my friend had heard.
I purchased my copy of “The Anarchists Cookbook” from Waldens’ (don’t bother, it’s defanged). I asked, the lady went into the back and walked back out with it.
My friend is convinced that now my name is on a list, with all the other folks that purchase such books.
Any semblance of truth to that? And are those types of books (Poor Man’s James Bond, Improvised Ordinance I-IV, etc.) usually there but not out on the floor, or am I going to have to order them?
We don’t sell it at my bookstore, but then, we have limited space, and if we have to not put something on the shelves, then we’re just going to have people order it as they want it instead.
Legally, the government can request a list of names of people who have bought such books. This has caused consternation and all that, but it is legal under some law passed under 9-11, to “protect” us from terrorists or anarchists or whatever. Your name doesn’t automatically go on the list, but if you order it, your name will be in the special orders info with everyone else who ordered whatever book. Then the government can come in and snatch the names of everyone who ordered such and such book. Dunno what they do with the names.
Siv, I thought there was a lawsuit about this very thing, and the bookstores won and didn’t have to reveal it? I remember, some guy had a bunch of bomb-making stuff at his house, the government wanted his order history, the store wouldn’t supply it. It went to court and the bookstore won. Anyone know what I’m talking about and can provide more info?
We have a policy of not stocking all that. We don’t stock it, we don’t order it, so I can’t really answer your question. I’ve read em all, by the way, and they’re all pretty tame stuff.
Nope, most of my coworkers aren’t great. However if you buy porn mags or erotica books from my bookstore, chances are they’ve been fished out of the men’s bathroom more than once by yours truly.