Things I am learning at my NotJob

As mentioned previously, I've been going in to the main library in Anchorage to volunteer a couple times a week. They have me working on organizing books for the upcoming book sale. I have impressed them so much with my skills that I've been promoted from being an assistant volunteer in the nonfiction section to She Who Rules over Fiction. I will also be managing about 10 cadets from a local military school when it comes time to set up for what is gearing up to be a massive book sale. I am told the cadets will call me ma'am. I approve of this.

Anyway. Fun tidbits from the Dungeon (for that is what the underground room with all the books is called):

First off, these books are a steal. The hard-backs are $2, the nice big "Oprah" paperbacks (the kind you see in airport bookstores, which normally sell for $12 - $15) are only 50 friggin' cents, and the ratty little trade paperbacks are 25 cents. They need to be charging more for those Oprah books, I tell you. Nearly all of them are brand spanking new.

I can steal books from the shelves and read them as long as I bring them back before the sale.

People in Alaska (or possibly just the US in general) really, really love Nora Roberts. I've never read her. I don't know how anyone can write that many books--there is an entire section just for her. I bet she doesn't even write them anymore. She probably uses a computer program that takes material from the first 15 novels and then spits out a new one. Or perhaps, like VC Andrews, she is actually dead but still has books published in her name. In support of this theory, I noticed a sticker on one paperback which guarantees that it's a brand-new Nora Roberts novel. Readers must be noticing how familiar the stories seem.

Other people with their own shelves: Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Danielle Steel, John Grisham, Robert Ludlum. Meh.

There are entirely too many thrillers out there.

What is the difference between a thriller and a mystery? To me if it's about cops or detectives and uses the words "gritty" or "racing" or "explosive" in the description, it's a thriller. But I have no way to know if that is true. Is any kind of whodunit a mystery? (Note: I just did a Google search for the difference between mystery & thriller and found this helpful list. The lady could be talking rubbish, though.)

Some mistaken volunteer has been putting chick lit in the romance section. My brain nearly exploded. I caught the error in time, though. Chick lit is SO not the same thing as romance. For one thing (and this is how I explained it to the rest of the staff) it costs more. I'm probably earning the library a whole 5 bucks by moving those books back over into the Oprah category.

Another volunteer (the one I'll be replacing as She Who Rules over Fiction, because she's moving) and I spent all afternoon bundling up sets of books with a pretty yarn bow and a cute li'l dangly price tag. It was her idea. The sets were things like:

• 4 Oprah book club reads
• 4 books by Nicholas Sparks
  
• 4 books by Anita Shreve
• 4 Booker Award books
• 4 books by Pulitzer-prize-winner authors
• 4 of the same book (book-club sets)
• 4 books-made-into-films
  

I wanted to go crazy with those sets, actually. I could just see the potential, and the books were all there, stacks and stacks and stacks of them:

• Chick Lit sets (BJD, Shopoholic series, Nanny Diaries)
• Near Eastern Writers
• A.S. Byatt (I did do this one, actually)
  
• Irish Writers (Frank McCourt, Roddy Doyle)
  
• Writers Who Move to Europe and Buy Old Homes and Eat Fabulous Food (Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes, etc.)

But I eventually had to stop. Maybe I'll do some more this week. And so help me, if people try to switch out books during the sale or dismantle the sets I will go all Soup Nazi on them. "No books for you!" I mean, seriously. They are paying 2 dollars for $40 worth of books. It couldn't get any better.