Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops

Lalalalaaaa!! I shall post this now and get it out of my system. Are you ready? 

I am lucky enough to have in my possession an advance copy of the fabulous ‘Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops’ by the equally fabulous Jen Campbell. Looky looky, I have my own copy and it’s so beautiful. It also has Jen’s writing in it. I have lots of letters and cards and stuff all over my house with Jen’s writing all over them because Jen is the queen of snail mail but this is special because this is a book and Jen wrote it and I have all the proud friend feelings right now.

Jen, if you don’t know, is a very talented writer, she has had both short stories and poems published, had a poem animated for the recent Smile London campaign, has a full poetry collection awaiting publication later this year and also has a short story collection and a novel in the works. She’s awesome. I’m telling you now, this girl is going to make it big and you read it here first [unless of course you are here because Jen tweeted about Herman theGerman, in which case of course you didn’t read it here first at all, you already know.] If you’re interested in reading her fictional writings then go here because this story, Second Skin, is one of my favourite pieces of hers ever.

Weird Things is Jen’s first book – due for release on April 5th this year– and whilst a far cry from the stuff I’m used to reading from Jen, is no less fabulous. 

I feel I really should point out that I am not only blogging about this because Jen’s my friend. I promise. If I didn’t think the book wasall that great then I’d have mostly just sent her a ‘oooo you wrote a book, yeah for you and thanks for the copy’ text and left it at that, but, I do think it’s great and I can pretty much say that even if I had zero idea who Jen Campbell was I’d pick this book off the shelf and I’d love it. It’s eye-catching for starters, it’s a pretty book and I love pretty books. It’s illustrated by the super cool Brothers Mcleod and they’ve done a wonderful job:the cover is bright and attention grabbing, it has an actual bona-fide quote from Neil Gaiman [how cool is that] and it’s funny. 

The actual book itself is laugh out loud funny, at the sametime as having you roll your eyes in despair and it’s great because whilst sometimes you can’t quite believe people have said these things at the same time you totally can because everyone has met someone like the characters inside these pages; everyone has had some kind of encounter that has left them despairing for the human race, that they’ve related to their friends and family over dinner, those stories that you can’t believe are real but at the same time you couldn’t ever make up and what makes this book so special is that Jen has managed to turn what would have most of us tearing out our hair and saving snippets for later conversation, into a book – she was savvy enough to write everything down and even before the book-deal her Weird Things  blog posts were exceptionally popular. 

Weird Things is chock full of perfectly comedic exchanges between bookseller and customer, and I mean chock full and what makes it better is that these stories all took place in bookshops: in TheEdinburgh Bookshop where Jen was a bookseller whilst at university, in RippingYarns which she runs now [both of these shops are amazing. I can tell you that from experience] and in bookshops all over the world – from England to New Zealand to the USA, people say Weird Things in bookshops the whole world over and the best of them are collected here, in a pretty pretty package for you to read from cover to cover or to dip into at will, to chuckle about to yourself or to share with friends. 

If you like books and like bookshops and have a senseof humour then you ought to read it. 

You may consider this a recommendation.