Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore, by Suzanne Strempek Shea

The Story: While going through some pretty bad cancer treatments Suzanne was asked by a friend to work at a small, indie bookstore.  The initial idea was just to work a few hours a week, but for Suzanne it really became a form of treatment.  She made friends with the workers and customers and found herself doing something that she truly loved.

Suzanne walks the reader through what working in a bookstore entails, from setting up seasonal tables, taking inventory and *gasp* where books go when no one buys them.

She is an author as well and towards the end of the year sets off on a tour to promote her new book.  This part of the book kind of reads like a travelogue of incredible indie bookstores all over the country.

What I Thought: Um, a memoir PLUS a book about books… PLUS my dream job? I am pretty sure that I am the ideal reader of this book.

I, of course, loved it.

I have to admit, I was jealous the whole time.  The owner of the bookstore that Suzanne worked at told customers that if she recommended a book to you and you didn’t like it, you could bring it back no questions asked.  I think I could do that!  That is one of the reasons I like having a lot of books in my house- I get no bigger thrill than handing someone a book that I think that they will love and then hearing back a week later that I was right.  Rarely does someone come back to me and just kind of shrug.  I kind of have a knack for this.

Thus the reason that I’m pretty sure I’d be a killer bookstore owner/employee.

I think that Suzanne wrote a fun, sweet little book.  It was funny in parts and inspiring in parts and just this great balance.  I thought that her voice was real and readable and I just loved it.

I know that I’m gushing a little, but this was just such a fun book to read.

I guess if I have to say something negative it is this:  this book was written about 10 years ago and quite a bit has changed in the book/bookstore world since then so there were huge sections that were just pretty dated.  Not that this could be remedied now, but I was reminded a lot that this was not up-to-date.  I’d love to hear what the author would have to say about the state of indie bookstores now and about e-readers and Border’s situation.

But that’s it.  Other than that, this was a home run for me.

Conclusion: Bibliophiles: Read this book.