'I'm looking for the Bible... who's the author?' And other witless (but hilarious) questions customers ask in bookshops



What book should I read to get girls to sleep with me? Do you have a book suitable for chimpanzees?

From the ignorant to the ridiculous, bookshop staff get asked the strangest things. After one inane inquiry too many, Jen Campbell, who works at the Ripping Yarns bookshop in North London, published a selection of them last year. It was such a runaway success that she asked fellow shop-owners for their own examples …



Strange questions: Customer: Do you have audiobooks on sign language?

Customer: I’d like to return this Where’s Wally? book please.



Bookseller: Why?

Customer: Because I’ve found him.

Customer: Urgh. Shakespeare. He’s everywhere, isn’t he? You can’t escape him. I wish he’d do us all a favour and just die.

Customer: I need a really awful book to give someone I hate. Any recommendations?

Customer (holding up an art book): Wow, Picasso must have gone out with some really ugly women.

Customer (buying a copy of Gulliver’s Travels): I’m thinking of going travelling, so I thought I’d give this a read to give me ideas of places to go. He seems to have gone to some really crazy parts of the world!

Customer (to her friend): I only like books that I can really believe happened, you know? Like Twilight.

Customer: Pride and Prejudice was published a long time ago, right?

Bookseller: Yep.

Customer: I thought so. Colin Firth’s looking really good for his age, then.

Customer: Do you have audiobooks on sign language?

Little Girl (pointing at the Dr Seuss book The Cat In The Hat): I made a hat for my cat, but he won’t wear it. That book is full of lies.

Customer: I don’t like biographies. The main character pretty much always dies in the end.

Woman (holding a copy of a WeightWatchers book in one hand and The Hunger Games — a science fiction novel — in the other): Which of these dieting books would you recommend?

Customer: If I had a book store, I’d make the mystery section really hard to find.

Customer: In which section would I find a book on the workings of the internal combustion engine — suitable for a three-year-old?

Customer (to her friend): What about this book (holds up a copy of The Hobbit)?

Friend: No. I don’t want to read that. It’ll spoil the film.

Customer: I’d like to buy a book for my wife.

Bookseller: Sure, what sort?

Customer: I don’t know. Something … pink? Women like pink stuff, right?

Customer: What book do you recommend I read when I’m on the Tube to get girls to want to sleep with me?

Little girl: My dad’s taking me to the zoo! I want to read a book to the chimpanzees. Do you have a book with pictures of monkeys in it?

Bookseller: I’m sure we do; I’ll help you look.

Little girl: Thanks. I think they’ll like the pictures.

Customer: Do you have any books signed by authors who are likely to die very soon? I’d like to make an investment.

Customer: Where’s your true fiction section?

Customer: I’m looking for that book, Romeo And Juliet. It’s about a fight between the DiCaprios and another gang.

Customer (eagerly): I really liked Fifty Shades Of Grey. (Pause) Do you have an illustrated version?

Customer: Hi, I'm looking for a Bible for my mother but I'm not quite sure who the author is

Customer: Do you have a copy of Jane Eyre? We’re doing it in our book club.

Bookseller: Sure. I’ll just get you a copy.

Customer: Thanks. You know, I go to this book club thing but I really hate reading.

Bookseller: So why do you go?

Customer: I don’t know, really. (Pause). To make things easier, I bought a book called How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

Bookseller: Yeah?

Customer: Yeah. I didn’t read it.

Elderly female customer: I can’t believe everybody’s reading this Fifty Shades ...

Bookseller: I know. I take it that it isn’t your cup of tea, then?

Customer: Oh, no dear. Been there, done that — no need to read about it!

Customer: Hi, I’m looking for a book version of my satnav.

Bookseller: Do you mean a road map?

Customer: Maybe.

Little Girl (pointing at the Dr Seuss book The Cat In The Hat): I made a hat for my cat, but he won't wear it. That book is full of lies

Customer (holding a signed copy of a Jacqueline Wilson book): I want to buy this book — but not this copy because someone’s written in it.

Bookseller: That’s the author’s signature!

Customer: I don’t care who’s written in it. I just want a clean copy!

Customer: Hello! I’m searching for a book. I’m not sure of the publisher but it’s really great and I just have to read it again.

Bookseller: Sure. What was the title of the book?

Customer: Well, the thing is, I don’t really remember.

Bookseller: OK, then how about the author?

Customer: I don’t know his name.

Bookseller: Right.

Customer: But he was definitely European…

Bookseller: OK.

Customer: It was non-fiction. Some kind of study. Probably.

Bookseller: Right.

Customer (looking expectantly at the bookseller): Come on, you must know the book I mean!

Customer: Hi, I’m looking for a Bible for my mother but I’m not quite sure who the author is.

Customer: Did they make a film edition of the Bible when The Passion Of The Christ came out? You know, the text of the Bible but with Mel Gibson on the front cover?

Customer: Do you have the new book by Charles Dickens?

Bookseller: Well, he hasn’t published anything since the 19th century …

Customer: The new one that Oprah Winfrey’s promoting.

Bookseller: Oh. A Tale Of Two Cities, yes, we have that.

Customer: Yeah, like I said, the new one.

Customer: Will you be getting Tolkien in for a signing soon?

Customer: Do you have Pride And Produce?

Bookseller: Erm, is that a cookbook?

Customer: No.

Bookseller: A gardening book?

Customer: No.

Bookseller: Is it a novel?

Customer: Yes.

Bookseller: Could you mean Pride And Prejudice?

Customer: Yes!

Customer: Where in the book does it tell you how many pages there are?

Customer: I’m looking for a book about the Holocaust. But I don’t want it to be a sad book.