I've recently become addicted to reading the Guardian newspaper's website book section. They have a 'book blog', and through it I discovered a blog written by an American guy named Matt, who not only works in a book store but is in fact a manager. His blog varies from the usual 'customer drove me nuts' thing to quite boring (in my opinion) stuff about Manga and stats and whatnot. The first post I ever read was entitled 'The Seven Types of Customer' and I totally identified with it, I thought 'this guy's hit the nail on the head!' What I didn't expect (although I really should have after reading this) was the comments, most were 'I work in retail and I identify with you!' but there were a fair few that are downright nasty.
Rocket Bomber
I think the guy has the general customer base of a book store down pat. As he says at one point, a book shop isn't really like any other retail experience, supermarkets and clothes shops don't have information desks, they don't have all their stock listed in a searchable database.
Obviously we don't really have the 'Oprah-ites' in Britain, probably the nearest equivalent would be the Richard and Judy Book Club, although I doubt they command such a zealous following!
