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April 18, 2013
The Power of Booksellers
by Rich Rennicks
I stumbled on this great staff recommendation card in Harvard Book Store recently. Richard J. Kramer, author of These Things Happen, had read at the store just before the holidays, and offered to buy a copy of his book for one of the booksellers. Initially skeptical that his book would be to her taste, the recommendation card shows how the book won this bookseller over:
“Okay, full disclosure here: I would never have picked up this book if the author himself hadn’t bought it for me. But he did, a couple of weeks ago, with the promise that, if after ten pages I didn’t want to keep reading, I must be a “crazy person.” I was fairly skeptical at first—that kind of ridiculous, hilarious overconfidence tends to put me on my guard—but I gave it a go, and (you can probably see where this is going by now) he was right. It didn’t even take ten pages; I didn’t want to stop reading after three.
This book is smart and sad and funny and wonderfully, remarkably genuine. Spending 48 hours inside the heads of its characters has been a real pleasure, and I’m grateful to Richard Kramer, not only for buying me this book, but for making me notice it.
My hope is that here, now, I’m doing you the same favor.”
—Serena
On the day I met Serena and saw the display, she was restocking it with books, a sign that her recommendation was indeed winning over other readers. With all the talk of ebooks and online behemoths, it’s great to see the power of a bookseller in action.
Posted in: Events, New Books, Our Catalog, | Keywords: harvard book store, new book releases 2012, rich rennicks, richard kramer, these things happen
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