Book Review: The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading, by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann with Chris Mooney
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez
c.2024, Little, Brown $28.00 338 pages
Last night, you got between the covers and went to South America.
It wasn’t difficult. A few days ago, you walked around London in 1888; you were in the future before that; you’ve met con artists, florists, runaways, and heroines, and you didn’t even have to leave your house. You can experience many things with a book, and in “The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians” by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann, you’ll read about a different kind of adventure.
“To be a bookseller,” say the authors, “you have to play detective.”
That means determining which book with a “blue cover” is the one the customer wants. It’s asking the right questions to find the right fit for young readers and assuring book lovers that “that’s okay” if they didn’t like something.
It’s having a heart that’s “plugged into this work.”
When you’re a librarian or bookseller, you get to meet celebrities, politicians, and authors like Michelle Obama, Brad Meltzer, James Patterson, and local writers. Your library or bookstore often becomes “a small community, a place where people can… discuss books with others, and get book recommendations.” It’s “a happy gathering place” but it’s also a business that requires planning, money, a dream, and sometimes a bit of luck.
And, of course, you can’t forget the customers, patrons, and your co-workers. Like the now-full-time employee who started years ago as a high-schooler, or the customer who comes in weekly for a pile of goodness. The community that kept the doors open-ish during the pandemic or after a natural disaster. That employee who happens to be the bookstore dog.
A good bookstore or library helps “meet [people] where they are.” In the back room, it works as a place for industry folks to network. It’s a place to experience “Book Joy.” It’s where you can find beloved authors, new favorites, and old books. It’s where literacy is promoted and the very idea of book banning is absolutely unthinkable.
It’s a place to find a book. And “if you don’t like it… try something else!”
Several variations of the word “magic” appear inside “The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians.” It’s even in the subtitle, and for good reason: if you’ve come this far in this column, you know that there’s a certain magical quality about reading. Here, you’ll get to know people who help put books in your hands.
Authors James Patterson and Matt Eversmann let their interviewees – experienced booksellers and bibliognosts from all kinds of libraries – speak to the heart of all readers through brief snapshots of beginnings, average days, good fights for literacy, and favorite things about their jobs. You’ll find mostly happy words here, but a few frustrations sneak through and this book also puts to rest a few myths – in particular, that booksellers and librarians do not “sit around and read all day…”
But that shouldn’t stop you from doing it, so find “The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians. It’s what you want when you want to stay between the covers.
The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. Terri has been reading since she was 3 years old and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 13,000 books.