The Secret to Shopping in Used Bookstores

"Summer is a good season for bookstores. As the weather warms, more foot traffic passes by on the street. Front doors can be left open to entice wander-ins. The relaxed flow of summer reading lends itself to spontaneous finds plucked from the shelf instead of purposeful winter tomes. And visitors tend to linger as the daylight hours lengthen. At least some do. There’s another type of customer encounter that happens at least once a shift at the used bookstore where I work, sometimes a dozen times. A customer walks in, beelines to where I’m helming the front desk, and asks a variation of the same question: 'Do you have this specific book?' I’ve worked at the register for two used bookstores—the nonprofit Housing Works Bookstore in New York City’s Soho and the cooperatively run Adobe Bookstore in San Francisco’s Mission District—so I’ve fielded this question hundreds of times. It’s usually easy to answer. ..."
LitHub
W - Used bookstore