I went to a shop to buy the book âJonathan Strange and Mr. Norrellâ today, because the tv trailer looked great and I thought, why not ? So I ask the owner if they have it. She looks around, checks on her computer and then goes :Â âThatâs an old one ! It came out in 2004, no wonder we donât have it !â And she looked at me like I was crazy, wanting to read a book more than ten years old.
And I think that summarizes the problem with book shops nowadays : so many of them only have the latest books. I guess they want to be âmodernâ, âinâ and thatâs great, thatâs good. But I once went to a book shop which didnât have a classical section, and thatâs just wrong.
I mean, I understand that they canât have every book ever written, but to explain it by saying that itâs âtoo oldâ doesnât make any sense. A book doesnât stop being good because it isnât new. The work of Shakespeare is far older than that, and a decent book shop should have it. And yes, I know I canât compare Shakespeare to a fantasy book, but I wanted to make my point clear.Â
Just say you donât have it, do not make excuses like that.Â
And that was my rant of the day. ^^â