>Come now, did you really take that to mean I had to imagine the bookstore and not the customer? If you went in bookstores all the time and never ran into cust

>Come now, did you really take that to mean I had to imagine the bookstore and not the customer? If you went in bookstores all the time and never ran into customers behaving that way then why would you be imagining it and confirming a general pattern? Seems like you would have contrary evidence in that case. >People who adorn their bookshelves with ornate "leather-bound classics" Decorators use fake books. And fake flowers. And fake fruit. People are so used to fakery that they get upset when it's missing. Like when someone is interviewed and the transcript has lots of "um, er, ah". Because they're not reading prepared remarks from a teleprompter, the smartest person will never be that smooth extemporaneously. Most of the books I put out on shelves are real books that I've read, but they're not there because I need them close at hand to reread at any moment. Also, I tend to skim a lot when something doesn't engage me, so I might fail a pop quiz on something I did read once. >People who make recommendations to others about how they should read such great works of Western Canon, e.g. the Complete Works of William Shakespeare The problem with Shakespeare's plays is that they're written in a foreign language, and it's often inflicted on people without even acknowledging that let alone trying to help them understand it. I wonder if there are any adaptations to film with modernized subtitles and notes overlaid.