Category Archives: Name That Tune

A charmingly open young man with a ready smile brought us what he hoped would not be a hopeless challenge — naming a book with no notes pertaining to the actual book, but with a few very vague clues in the vicinity.  Aida and I felt our double-team had a good shot… so, lay it down!  OK.  He had been browsing through earlier with a friend.  Preoccupied with a book he eventually decided to buy, he was (darn it! he says ruefully,) only partly attentive when his companion showed him a book by a female author whose previous book she had enjoyed. They went on to have a very pleasant lunch in the cafe and, flush with joie de vivre, he was inspired to surprise her with a gift of the book. The only thing he remembered was that the photo of the youngish author was so attractive (and blonde) that he thought “actress” rather than “writer”, and her previous book had been about a marriage or an affair.  Ooof…this is indeed a very wide field.  I can hear the whir of voracious reader Aida’s brain spinning through her catalogue.  She names every female author currently in stock who she thinks could be considered “actress-y”: Isabel Allende, Jane Greene, Haven Kimmel, Anita Shreve, Alice Hoffman….no, nope, no again. The Story of a Marriage? The Amateur Marriage? A Reliable Wife? No, no and no– Robert Goolrick is definitely not a young blonde. Do you know how many books there are about marriages and the affairs they spawn? I see the steam running out and provoke the second wind by exclaiming our small size gives us the advantage.  That book has to be close by!  Where was your friend standing…here by the center island?  That’s new hardcover fiction.  I start looking at back cover photos of every female author in arm’s reach. Our challenger chides himself: “I have to be more attentive.” (So sweet!)

As I churn through photos, Aida appears to be in a mild trance.  Suddenly she reaches past me for Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin.  Opening it to the thumbnail photo inside the back flap she says, “Is this it?”  YES!  How did you think of this, I marvel.  She shrugs. “It just came to me.”  He’s thrilled…”I love you guys!”.  We love you too.

-Jane

This morning, as one of our regulars was giving a friend a first-time-new-to-the-bookstore tour, his eyes fell upon “The Solitude of Prime Numbers” by Paolo Giordano and he turned to tell me how much he had loved it. As we discussed the charm of prime numbers, he was reminded of a book he had seen at a bookstore in Mexico City – browsed but never read – a book that wasn’t about prime numbers, but mentioned them…it had a red cover.  It was about a boy.  There was a dog involved somehow.  As with many a “bookie”, he already had a stack waiting to be read, so he had passed up the book with the red cover, but now prime numbers were calling him to it again. Boys and dogs are found everywhere in literature, but I couldn’t remember reading anything that paired them with mathematics. Shifting gears, my eyes raced across our modest inventory in search of red covers.  There are fewer of them than you’d think, and nothing currently suggesting boys, dogs, or prime numbers. Ah, well… He turned back to his friend and they browsed along the shelves, caressing titles of interest and commenting quietly to one another in Spanish…a lovely, musical soft murmur.  He bought a book, as it happened one with a lot of red in the cover, and they left.  Their sweet sound lingered behind them, however, and must have somehow aligned my brainwaves with the music of the spheres because…bang!…out leapt “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime” by Mark Haddon.  Boy.  Dog.  Red cover. I have not read this book myself, but now I remembered the oddity of chapters numbered as primes.  I raced over to the shelf.  Not there.  Sold out, for the moment.  Sometimes your own wide reading and brilliant knowledge of literature gives you full entitlement to your “Name That Tune” moment.  Other times, like this one, it’s just pure unknowable collective unconsciousness.  Mark Haddon’s psychic holographic self jumping up and down “That’s me!  Me!”  Then your talent lies in listening rather than scoffing at yourself…confidence in your favor with the Book Gods.  However it happens, our customer’s title will be waiting for him at his next appearance on our enchanted little stage.

-Jane

More often than you can imagine, sweet, curious people pass through our doors who want that book, you know that one with the blue and the… the one that starts with “The…” with the guy who dies and she’s abducted. There’s nothing a crazy bookseller loves more than to successfully… name the tune in under two notes. Here’s the first in the series:

Two young women were streaking through the bookstore towards the open french door into the cafe’s back garden and the irresistible music of the fountain, when one suddenly whirled around, slapped her hand on the counter and declared “I need a book!”. Turning to her friend, she said “You know, that tragic heroine.”  They must have had a recent conversation on the subject, because her friend immediately said “You mean Anna Karenina?”   “No!  Not that one.  The other one!” exclaimed the customer, turning to look at me expectantly.  We three stared blankly at one another for a moment, then burst out laughing at the wide expanse of literature in which “the other one” could be hiding.  Then the bookstore and I mind-melded and after a short cascade of inspiration I gave her answer.  “Madame Bovary.”  “That’s it!” she cried, and another slap of the counter sealed the deal.

-Jane