{"id":17048,"date":"2015-12-15T09:25:54","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T14:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17048"},"modified":"2015-12-15T09:25:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T14:25:54","slug":"bartenders-without-booze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17048","title":{"rendered":"Bartenders Without Booze"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, I listened to a guy tell a great story in a barn<\/a>. He told the listening crowd that as\u00a0a younger man, he had been\u00a0an aspiring writer who took a job as a bartender at a fancy restaurant. He liked the idea of being a bartender because, unlike the busy wait staff, he envisioned having time\u00a0to\u00a0connect with patrons while polishing glasses, looking wise, and dealing out “life-changing pearls of wisdom” at just the right time. (He did get his chance to do all of that, but that’s his story to tell.)
\n
\nI was reminded of that\u00a0story recently\u00a0when\u00a0a bookseller pal joked\u00a0that it should be illegal for customers to try to force merchants to talk about politics or to be sounding boards for their emotional challenges. It’s pretty tough to avoid politics altogether, especially when our own fab Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders, is in the running for President, and it’s true that sometimes we can feel trapped behind the counter, unable to attend\u00a0to some of our pressing work when a customer is holding forth. But we also get a lot out of those exchanges;\u00a0they make our retail endeavors deeper and richer than a simple exchange of goods.
\nWhen you pare away everything else, we humans\u00a0are our stories and our connections with others. So it’s not a surprise that bookstores\u2014spaces dedicated to stories shared on paper\u2014are destinations\u00a0to share our own stories.
\nWe see families through crises with books and hugs and listening ears, and customers do the\u00a0same for us (with baked goods replacing books) when we go through ours. We hear about people’s exciting and scary career changes, their children’s challenges, their experiences\u00a0with local schools, their accomplishments and relationships and new pets and old loves. We hear a lot of stories, and it feels almost\u00a0like a sacred trust they put in us.
\nNot every patron at the bar tells a story, and not every bookstore exchange is a personal one.\u00a0And that’s a good thing, or we’d never get anything else done. But it’s an honor to be a welcoming place for\u00a0so many, many stories.
\nSo here’s to bartending, with or without booze. \u00c0 votre\u00a0sant\u00e9!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s more than just recommending books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}