{"id":9471,"date":"2012-11-14T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=9471"},"modified":"2012-11-14T06:00:07","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T11:00:07","slug":"no-one-gives-me-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=9471","title":{"rendered":"No One Gives Me Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is my birthday. I&#8217;ve owned a bookstore for 16 years and for 16 years, I have not received a book as a gift. Everyone just assumes I can get all the books I want. While this is true, there is something so lovely about getting a book as a gift.<br \/>\nThere is nothing quite like a good friend shopping for a book for you. I see tremendous thought go into book purchases by my customers. When you give a book you&#8217;re really thinking about someone. What do they like? What mood are they in and how can a book help that? Too often it is assumed that I know all the books in the land, therefore it&#8217;s pointless to get me a book. Oh, reader, this is not so.<br \/>\nI love being introduced to a book by a friend. Someone introducing me to their favorite author is a privilege. I like learning about my friends by what their book passions are. Why do they like Neruda? How come I&#8217;d never read Kaye Gibbons until Elizabeth handed me <em>Ellen Foster<\/em>? It&#8217;s not enough to tell me about these authors, I can&#8217;t remember names these days. But a book I&#8217;ll remember.<br \/>\nSome of my best book birthdays include my sixth when I got a copy of the Dr. Seuss book, <em>My Book About Me<\/em>. A gift of <em>Mrs. Piggle Wiggle<\/em> when I was nine made my Christmas vacation. \u00a0A tenth birthday present of <em>Julie of the Wolves<\/em> and I remember so clearly sitting in my room, practically transfixed as I read the book one weekend. I can&#8217;t believe I still remember these books.<br \/>\nBut also remember a Christmas present in my 20s of\u00a0<em>The Secret History<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Wicked.\u00a0<\/em>Gone are the days of someone giving me a cookbook. I still have my\u00a0<em>Silver Palate Cookbook<\/em> from 20 years ago. Books create memories for the giver and the receiver. So, remember, just because a bookseller works in a bookstore, doesn&#8217;t mean she wouldn&#8217;t like a book now and again.<br \/>\nWhat are some of the books you remember the most being given?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Books make great presents, except for booksellers, who seem to never receive them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9471","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\/9471","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}