Sunday, March 4, 2018

The Rebirth of Bookstore Managment

On Thursday, my Mum and I were out seeing the doctors in the city. But that's not all we were doing. After that rather expensive hour or so with the doctor and then paying for parking, we headed off to Garden City on the south side of Brisbane in the search for some lunch.

Yes, it was a very hot day, we wanted air conditioning in the worst possible way.

Well, we had a light lunch, then a coffee and then did some shoe shopping - for Mum - and headed to QBD in the centre on the top floor not to find any books. No, when I go into this store, normally, I'm just enjoy the looking around perusing of shelves and the joy of seeing what's out on the market right now.

Like any book-lover, I enjoy just seeing books on shelves in bookstores... I could live in a bookstore because it's something I have at home - my own home library - and it brings me great joy to be around it; it brings me peace before I go to bed a night. Yes, I spend time in my home library to settle my mind; I don't know how, but it does. 

Anyway, being in a bookstore in the middle of a busy day out with anyone just helps me meditate for a while. I love just staring at the spines of the books, looking through the different and new publications and finding out what people are into right now. 

Well, just before Mum and I left the store, I spotted 'Uncommon Type' by Tom Hanks. I knew I had to have it! It was a book I had heard he was writing this book about a year or so ago, but there was no release date. And to see it on the shelves made me jump! I grabbed it and was so happy to see it I took it straight to the counter and asked about it. The young man at the counter was very helpful as he put through my QBD member's card and told me that I had plenty of points on that card to use - yay! - and so I didn't have to pay full price!

The best things I found out about this young man was that he is also the manager of this store; and yet he was in his 20's, very friendly, approachable and helpful in every way. When we got talking to him, we found out he had a huge library of books at home as well... telling us that he can't live without books being around him when he's at home either. 

Now, I'm so happy there's still hope for the traditional printed books for the younger generation; seeing I've spotted so many of them with Kindles and Kobos in their hands claiming that the paper books are dying out. With people like this great manager of QBD Garden City showing up in their stores now, I think there's hope for the traditionally printed books yet!

Have you come across this type of hope lately? Or is just a fluke and Mum and I happened across it just this one day? And have you read Tom Hanks' nea book? What did you think of it? I've only begun reading it, and already, I like it.  Until my next post, happy reading!

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