Bookshop synchronicities

I work in a large bookshop, and have noticed a number of potentially meaningful coincidences during my time there. Most of them are interesting, but not bizarre. The most common example is when a customer asks for a book I had only just shelved earlier in the day. This would not be remarkable if the book were new, or a bestseller. However, most of the time this happens with obscure or special-interest books I have never seen before. Slightly weirder is when I’m talking about a book with a colleague and within a few minutes a customer comes up to buy the book we were discussing. Again, this never happens with new books or bestsellers.

The weirdest incident happened a few months ago. I was talking to a colleague and making a joke about Clippit, the silly paperclip character who would appear and offer you help when you used Microsoft Office Assistant years ago (“It looks like you’re writing a letter,” etc.). The next customer who came up to the counter was wearing a necklace with a pendant in the shape of this anthropomorphic paperclip! I suppose I could have noticed this subconsciously before talking to my workmate, but even so it is a bit of an odd thing.

I suppose the size and reputation of the bookshop make it more likely that customers will ask for obscure or niche titles. Booksellers are bound to talk about books, and even if those books aren’t shelved on my floor, people will look for the shortest queue and buy them from me. But each coincidence seems to hint at a pattern that makes daily life just a bit more interesting.

Lewis Hurst

London