# Overheard in Barnes & Noble **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 2, 2003, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070 "2003-09-02T04:09:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/1 "2003-09-02T04:09:39Z")
“Oh, look. They made a book out of _Lord of the Rings_.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/2 "2003-09-02T04:12:33Z")
Comments like that are why this board is necessary. Ye gawds, but people are idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Babbington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Mr.Babbington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Babbington)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/3 "2003-09-02T04:19:47Z")
Well, at least you didn’t hear that at Borders. ---
**Author:** ![acrossthesea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@acrossthesea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acrossthesea)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/4 "2003-09-02T04:59:35Z")
GRRRRR!!! I worked at B&N for a few years and that would have been the LEAST of the dumb comments I heard. When the FOTR came out, they made a huge display table of all the LOTR books. I overheard not one, but MULTIPLE people comment, “The Two Towers? Look, another WTC book! What’s it doing on the lord of the rings table?” Many, many people swore that book had to do with September 11th. ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/5 "2003-09-02T05:33:39Z")
“Mom, can’t we leave? I _hate_ books!” I nearly had a coronary. I know it’s not a requirement of life to like books, but my books are the dearest things I own. I couldn’t live without them. Ava ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/6 "2003-09-02T05:44:23Z")
A comment my co-worker made when he saw me reading “The Motley Fool’s Guide to Investing” “Oh, wow, they wrote a book? I love their music!” ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/7 "2003-09-02T05:57:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kung fu lola \* > Ye gawds, but people are idiots. Yeah. At least they were in a book store, but, man. It’s like, ya know? ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/8 "2003-09-02T05:57:44Z")
“Do you have that book ‘The Followship of the…Ring?’ You know. The movie.” “Yes, we have that and we have a bunch of books that are all three books in the series…” _wide-eyed_ “There’s a series of 'em? WOW!” * * * “Has this Tolkien come out with anything new lately?” “Noo…” “And why not?” “Um, he’s been dead quite a while.” “Oh my god! When did that happen?” “Thirty or forty years ago, I think…” “No! Really?” “Yep.” Actual conversations I had with customers when I worked in a bookstore. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/9 "2003-09-02T06:09:08Z")
When my brother Mark was employed at Borders in 1992, the Daniel Day-Lewis film The Last of the Mohicans was released. Mark’s co-worker Bonnie noticed that the store had a display of several copies of James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel and observed, “I see they’ve already made a book out of the movie.” ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/10 "2003-09-02T06:31:08Z")
I was about ready to ask if the OP quote was said by a B&N shopper or an worker, then I saw the LAST OF THE MOHICANS post. _sigh_ ---
**Author:** ![Inky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@Inky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inky_1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/11 "2003-09-02T06:40:14Z")
I had the pleasure of being behind a customer who was returning a copy of “What Color is your Parachute” (just about the most famous career guide ever written) because “it has absolutely _nothing_ to do with skydiving, can you believe it?”. Ugh… ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/12 "2003-09-02T13:36:53Z")
Kind of off-topic, but disturbing nonetheless- Apparently after the Lord of the Rings films got their noterieity, some other movies Peter Jackson directed suddenly popped up in ads. One such movie was “Meet the Feebles”. Now, we had seen this traumatic movie before we watched LotR, but when we saw an ad for it, there was the phrase “Directed by Peter Jackson of LotR fame” or something similar. That’s horrible! People are going to buy this movie thinking “Meet the Feebles”=“Fellowship of the Ring”. Then they will be greatly traumatitized and bitch about Peter Jackson. Grr! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/13 "2003-09-02T13:53:27Z")
I was at the Borders at the WTC a few years ago and one time heard someone trying to prove the divinity of Jesus to someone else using the following logic: > [@](#): > > Over the years I’ve talked to hundreds of people from all different religions. Rabbis, Imams, athiests, Budhists, you name it. And not one, not one, was ever able to prove that the Ressurection didn’t happen. Not one was able to disprove it… :rolleyes: Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![acrossthesea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@acrossthesea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acrossthesea)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/14 "2003-09-02T16:18:59Z")
**FRIEDO**!!! I just realized, you live in Queens?? The B&N I worked at was in Queens! So you may have likely heard a dumb comment in the store where I’ve heard millions of dumb comments! Amazing! ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/15 "2003-09-02T16:22:31Z")
Nah, this was one was in Manhattan. (The one near Lincoln Center in fact, 66th and Broadway or therabouts.) ---
**Author:** ![rockle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rockle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockle)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/16 "2003-09-02T16:37:45Z")
Just over the weekend, I heard two chippies arguing over whether the paperback edition of Bridget Jones’s Diary with Renée Zellweger on the cover was the “real” edition, or if the hardback large print edition was “real.” Their determination: The hardback version was “real” because it had, like, a hundred more pages, whereas the paperback version had a famous actress on the cover, so it must have been based on the movie. I had a migraine for the rest of the weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/17 "2003-09-02T20:59:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by friedo \* > \*\*“Oh, look. They made a book out of _Lord of the Rings_.” > > :smack: \*\* LOL. I said the very same thing this weekend - but at Borders. However, I would like to point out that I was joking - I read The Hobbit when I was 12 and LOTR shortly thereafter. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/18 "2003-09-02T21:27:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by avabeth \* > \*\*“Mom, can’t we leave? I _hate_ books!” > > I nearly had a coronary. I know it’s not a requirement of life to like books, but my books are the dearest things I own. I couldn’t live without them. > > Ava \*\* True, it’s not a requirement, but I hope that mother was at least encouraging her son/daughter to read. It seems to me that saying you hate books is extremely generalized, and we all know that all generalizations are false. 😉 There are a lot of books I don’t like, but there’s certainly something very wrong with that child’s statement. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/19 "2003-09-02T23:32:05Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by avabeth \* > \*\* I know it’s not a requirement of life to like books . . ._\* Yes, it is. I regard people who don’t like to read with deep suspicion. ---
**Author:** ![Rasa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rasa/32/3578_2.png) [@Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasa)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070/20 "2003-09-02T23:48:37Z")
The people in front of me in the movie theatre when I saw LOTR were **outraged** at how the movie “didn’t have an ending”… “We sat through three hours for THAT?” they exclaimed. They were astounded when I said “…it’s the first movie of a three book series…” Not quite as bad as at the bookstore but really. Shocking. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overheard-in-barnes-noble/199070.md?page=2)