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I recognise so many of these customers from both my days volunteering at a local charity shop (thrift store) and when I worked in my friend's hardware store. Particulaly the ones who came in for a chat! I was always amazed at the obvious "Poachers" at the charity store, when it was run mainly by volunteers, and the majority of the sales price went to charity!

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This was lovely! While reading, I was envisioning my local secondhand bookstore. This reminds me of Shaun Bythell’s books, particularly Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops. Have you read them?

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Thanks so much! I have not read this book, but I just checked it out and it sounds right up my alley. Adding it to my TBR.

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I wonder, Rosalynn, if you have to limit yourself to how many books you allow yourself to take home?! I can imagine that I would end up buying all the books... 📚

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I do! I have to set little rules for myself. I believe I have about six books from the store on my TBR shelf and until I read at least two, I told myself I’m not allowed to take home another one. If I spot a nice edition of a book I’ve already read and loved but do not currently own, I can add that to my collection. I know from past attempts at dieting that a hard limit like “no new books at all” would not work. I’d just come home with a stack at the end of every shift, until I ran out of shelf space :)

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That sounds like a very sensible plan!!

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That sounds like a very sensible plan!!

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His others are quite good too. The Diary of a Bookseller is his first—it seems similar to what you do here! (Except he’s a Scottish curmudgeon)

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It’s called The Dawn Treader, by the way 😊

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What a great name. I wonder if they’ve got as many copies of The Chronicles of Narnia on hand as we do. Tragically, we have three near-complete sets. Why everyone is hanging onto to The Magician’s Nephew, I’ll never know!

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