JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Photo: The Stalin Front by Gert Ledig, NYRB Classics, P200 at A Different Bookstore at the Manila Book Fair. Tsinelas bookmark by Scribe, P65 at Powerbooks.

I saw a copy of Soul, a collection of stories by Andrey Platonov, published by NYRB, at Fully Booked on Bonifacio High Street. I thought, “Hmm, maybe I should read some non-Russians,” and didn’t buy it. A week later I regretted not buying it, so I rang Fully Booked’s customer service. I didn’t have the number of the Bonifacio branch, so I called Rockwell. 

Me: Do you have Soul by Andrey Platonov?
Fully Booked: (Checking their database) Sorry ma’am, we don’t have that title.
Me: Could you check with your Bonifacio branch?
Fully Booked: Sorry ma’am, they don’t have that title.
Me:  But I just saw it last week. Did someone buy it?
FB: Sorry ma’am, ek ek ek ek ek.
Me: Ok, could you tell me what NYRB publications you have in stock? (I assumed that their database can show stocks arranged by publisher.) 
FB: Sorry ma’am we can only check by title and author.

The next day I happened to be in Rockwell so I went to Fully Booked to see with my own eyes. Of course they had the Platonov. It was filed in Fiction, under P. A few days later I was in Bonifacio so I looked for the Platonov again. They, too, had a copy, filed in Classics, under P. As my late mother used to say, “Look for it with your eyes, not with your mouth.”

I asked customer service if they had any children’s books by Maurice Sendak. According to their database, they had several titles. So two clerks were dispatched to the Children’s sections to find them. I watched them do their search. The problem, I think, is that the clerks could not tell by looking what the books’ titles were. Note to HR: Teach your staff how to find the title on a book cover. Finally I wandered off. To their credit, they kept looking. An hour later, as I was leaving the store, a clerk came up to me with Where The Wild Things Are. 

Grover noted that the recent Manila Book Fair looked like a big religious book swap. During my visit I avoided the booth called “Stories With Moral Values!” lest I be spotted as one of the possessed and exorcised.