Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
You said yourself: no book store can have everything in stock at all times. You go into a store looking for Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister. They don't have the book in stock. I would hope the clerk (if they were knowledgeable, no clerk knows everything about every subject) would recommend something comprable instead of just saying "we don't have it."
Not sure why that is even worth discussing?
George Orwell's 1984 is a classic that is always in stock. But when I worked in a book store and a class had 1984 assigned to read over a two month period, in the last three days of that period, the store would sell out of 1984. Because invariably the students (and their parents) all rushed to the store at the last minute to grab a copy. Yes, I'm sure some of them thought "this store sucks! They don't even have a copy of 1984!" But of course, there are reasons the store is out.
Now, in the case of it being required for a school read, recommending Huxley wouldn't help. But if someone was looking to read the book out of personal interest, I think recommending Huxley's Strange New World (your original complaint) would be entirely reasonable.
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Nobody stated that a clerk should not advise you. I think it should be very clear that the one actual clerk mentioned I stated should never dare to propose
"We do not have '1984', there is a book about motorcycle repairs if you want. No, not Pirsig. A manual to repair motorcycles. Not good enough for you eh? Well, we have some autobiographies there, if you are into those things".
And that clerk was mentioned and reported because it defines a book selling model, by myself criticized.
The point of post #72, hence this subthread, was that while no bookstore can have "everything" the good ones are the ones that try to go in that direction (as opposite to, for example, a random collection of meagre number) - relatively, as in "Just everything in political science" or absolutely, like Bass' Strand, or relatively absolutely, like well furnished stores with big organized collections.
EDIT:
Sorry, I thought I should be extra clear on a few points because I am feeling sad for that strawman ("being advised" as the matter of discussion) you are beating up so mercilessly ;-) :
-- "I do not have '1984', have you read 'Atlas Shrugged'?" : Good
-- "I do not have '1984', have you read 'Brave New World'?" : Ok
-- "I do not have '1984', I just finished it!" : Normal
-- "I do not have '1984', I only have ten titles" : Sad
-- "I do not have '1984', you can have '100 ways to cook mutton' if you want" : Bad
There where I wrote «Not ten thousand as in "You are looking for Orwell, sorry I do not have it but I can sell you Huxley"» it was «
Not ten thousand as in "You are looking for Orwell, sorry I do not have it but I can sell you Huxley"», meaning with that rhetoric that the bookstore
would not keep "Orwell" because of the space. You have read it too literally.