“CUSTOMER: Hi.BOOKSELLER: Hi there, how can I help?CUSTOMER: Could you please explain Kindle to me.BOOKSELLER: Sure. It’s an e-reader, which means you download books and read them on a small hand-held computer.CUSTOMER: Oh OK, I see. So . . . this Kindle. Are the books on that paperback or hardback?”

“CUSTOMER: I read a book in the sixties. I don’t remember the author, or the title. But it was green, and it made me laugh. Do you know which one I mean?”

“CUSTOMER: Oh, look, these books are all signed. (Pause) I wonder who signed them ?”

“CUSTOMER: Hi, I just wanted to ask: did Anne Frank ever write a sequel?BOOKSELLER: ........CUSTOMER: I really enjoyed her first book.BOOKSELLER: Her diary?CUSTOMER: Yes, the diary.BOOKSELLER: Her diary wasn’t fictional.CUSTOMER: Really?BOOKSELLER: Yes... She really dies at the end – that’s why the diary finishes. She was taken to a concentration camp.CUSTOMER: Oh... that’s terrible.BOOKSELLER: Yes, it was awful -CUSTOMER: I mean, it’s such a shame, you know? She was such a good writer.”

“(in response to the question: what do you think of e-books and Amazon’s Kindle?)Those aren’t books. You can’t hold a computer in your hand like you can a book. A computer does not smell. There are two perfumes to a book. If a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better. It smells like ancient Egypt. A book has got to smell. You have to hold it in your hands and pray to it. You put it in your pocket and you walk with it. And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn’t do that for you. I’m sorry.”

“CUSTOMER: Do you have a copy of Nineteen Eighty Six?BOOKSELLER: Nineteen Eighty Six?CUSTOMER: Yeah, Orwell.BOOKSELLER: Oh – Nineteen Eighty Four.CUSTOMER: No, I’m sure it’s Nineteen Eighty. Six; I’ve always remembered it because it’s the year I was born.”