Adventures in Staff-Picking

So I walked into work this morning. I was on time, which is about five to ten minutes earlier than I prefer to be when I open, because there is precisely nothing required to open a bookstore. (This could be why our morning meetings are like half an hour long, and today included "Yeah, this is the new book by this woman, she used to do Navy SEALS," "She did Navy SEALS? Really?" and "I'd like to go to storytime..." as well as I think maybe some sales numbers, but they were lost in the shuffle.)

I usually kill the first half hour hiding in the history section salivating over all the Alison!Weir!Goodness! or organizing the stuffed animals in the kids section by character. God knows what would happen if Big Bird and Elmo weren't in the same bin, across from Dora the Explorer, completely separate from Spongebob!

Le anyhoodles, today I am assaulted practically at the door by Pam, in a tizzy because they need to redo the staff picks selections.

Otherwise known as, The Corner With All of Kathleen's Books. Perhaps because I'm disarmingly sweet, or I read a lot, or I'm really good at bullshit (Debutante Divorcee? Sucked majorly, but you wouldn't know it!!!), Pam recruits me for staff picks pretty much every day I work. I don't really mind, but this led to the inevitable "Hmm. What shall I review today???"

I read such a variety of stuff, from chick lit fluff to Russian tomes, and I always struggle to choose.

See, part of me wants to pick a popular book and just be all annoyingly mainstream.

But another part of me wants to be all "No, you will read Bleak House and you will like it, dammit!!! Don't make me pull out my Tolstoy! You want fun? I've got 1300 pages of French Revolution for you courtesy of Mr. Hugo! How's that for summer reading!" *ahem*

I compromised and picked The Kitchen Boy, Girl Sleuth, and The Other Boleyn Girl. Kind of a mix.

So if you're in the neighborhood, please stop by and check them out. Of course, you'd have to know my entire name, because we have to use different names on each one to make it look like more employees are participating.

Good thing I have two middle names.