So you want to become a bookseller.

Ever since I started my apprenticeship in 2014 and started working as a bookseller, friends of mine (and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, and...) started stating that they would like to become one, too - or at least they heavily considered it.
I am not in the age anymore where you get all defensive about people doing your thing - in fact, I only started working in this field because I met my ex who is a passionate bookseller, told me about his job and gave me the opportunity to try it out at the shop he works at. When I hear people telling me that they want to do what I do, I feel like I am following in his footsteps, and since he is an amazing person with remarkable work ethics and so much love for what he does, I'd be proud if I was.
Thig is, I always feel like my job is not portrayed correctly. Not even by me. Of course I tend to only post/tweet about the nicr stuff. The moments that warm my heart and reassure me that I made the right choice. A lot of people seem to think that as a bookseller, you're mostly a bibliophile who gets paid for reading and gushing about books with customers - which is not inherently wrong, but simply not the whole truth.
To be very, very honest: I have seen a lot of people starting to work in this field and get disappointed, then frustrated, then quit because it is not what they expected.
And even though I love my job, my reality is very different to the reality of other booksellers (mostly due to a great team of coworkers and our amazing, kind customers) - and even I don't always love it.
To be very honest again: If it wasn't for my awesome colleagues and people in my life I can vent to, I wouldn't speak of my work half as fondly in public.
Now all of this may sound like I wanted to unsell becoming a bookseller to people. I really don't! But I think people should get disillusioned so they can choose this job without false expectations.
So here is a few tips and experiences that you should consider while considering a bookshop as your working place:

1. Think bookselling is reading and loving books for a paycheck? Think again!
As I said, my reality is really different to others. Yes, in my shop I get to read at work sometimes, and I get to gush about books I liked with customers. But this is an absolute exception. A lot of the other booksellers I know don't. It really depends where you're working. In a big chain? Forget it! In a small shop there might be the chance, but usually, there is too much to do. Because bookselling is, in the end, a retail job like any other retail job. There are things to be organized, shelves to be stocked, shelves to be cleaned, there is just so much to do most of the time. That I get to read is only due to the fact that I am still an apprentice and thus not qualified to do some of the work behind actually running a bookshop, and even then, it rarely happens that I am finished with everything and it's a quiet afternoon so I can spend time between customers reading. In fact, I am pretty sure that, once I started my next job, I'll have to go back to only reading in my free time.

2. Selling books is hard physical work!
This is also something that differs depending on where you work, but every shop has deliveries from publishers and wholesalers, and that means: hauling, hauling, hauling! If you are not at least a bit fit, either get fit or give up on that idea. Especially if you work for a shop that equips schools with textbooks, you'll be able to spend days just carrying tons of books from A to B and back. It's exhausting, and you will come home in the first few weeks and just fall asleep as soon as you went through the door. Promise!

3. Selling books is hard mental work!
Jup, it's both. This point is actually two points. First, it is mentally exhausting because you have to think a lot. You have to calculate a lot of stuff, even with the most mundane tasks you'll have to be fully concentrated because if you make one mistake you might be sending your company right into insolvency, and you have to be a true Sherlock Holmes, which brings be to the second point. If you work retail, it's inevitable that you will come across customers that will be very demanding. "I don't remember the title [nor the author nor the publisher nor anyting that might be actually something I can put in my catalogue to look it up] but the book was blue!" isn't a well-known phrase amongst booksellers for nothing. Or you get titles that are completely messed up from what they actually are. Or you get "You know, that English textbook for year 7!" Mate, there are literally a few hundred of those. Finding what your customer actually wants is something that will happen. Often. And you need to think, think, think. And, if you're lucky, remember all the books you ever saw in your life (not read, saw). And the ones your whole family, all your friends and your coworkers read. Being a catalogue on legs is helping a lot. I am still working to get to that point at some day right before my retirement.

4. It's not for introverts.
By that, I don't mean introvert as in having to recover all for yourself after spending time with people to charge your social battery again. I am that kind of introvert, and it's fine, really. I mean introvert as inbeing shy, being sensitive, generally prefering to be left alone. Soft skills are key in this field. You'll come across a lot of different kinds of people at work, and it is vital to treat all of them well, from the elderly highly-intellectual person over the soccer mom over the loud overly-excited lover of crime fiction over the sci-fi nerd to the small child who wants to spend their pocket money on Diaries Of A Whimpy Kid. No matter how they treat you. Keep smiling, stay polite, even if the soccer mom yells at you for ordering the exact English textbook for year 7 she pointed at the other day in your catalogue to be the book she needs that turned out to be the absolute wrong book for her childs class. This is hard as well, and you need to be thick-skinned to get through that. Luckily, I can say that, for me, that happens about... once a month, maybe? But those moments are hard, and it's a huge learning process to get to the point where you stop taking it personally and just get over with it. Just smile and wave - and vent to your coworker once there are no customers in the shop anymore.

5. It won't make you rich.
In fact, I am glad we have minimum wage in Germany, because when I finished my apprenticeship, if I work the same hours as I do now, I can comfortably survive on minimum wage as long as I still only have to feed myself. Bookselling is not a well-paying field. I compared wages with my boyfriends field the other day, and his entry wage will be my absolute top - ya know, in case I ever start my own company and it does well.
To be a bookseller, a Spongebob-like work ethic is helping a lot - you know, that episode where he pays Mr Krabbs for letting him work at the Krusty Krab? That. Being a bookseller is being an idealist. If you don't love the job enough that'd you'd do it for free, don't consider it.
 
If at this point you still think that sounds like a lot of fun - congrats, you have what it takes to be an awesome bookseller, and I'd be happy to have you as a colleague some day! Because, and this is important: In the end of the day, no matter how long and exhausting it was, no matter how much my back and my head hurt, I still wouldn't want to do anything else. Being a tad masochist helps, I guess.
I would still recommend, if possible, to do an internship at a bookshop first. Try it. Actually live it for a week or two and see how it feels. I am still not sure if I would be as enthusiastic about it if I didn't know what I got myself into beforehand. Maybe I would've been disappointed as well.
I am so very glad I wasn't.

"The Universe vs Alex Woods" by Gavin Extence - Review

In the middle of the night in Dover, a boy arrives on the ferry and is arrested. He is 17 years old. 130 grams of marijuana and an urn are found in his car. This and the partial epileptic seizure he has during his arrest are apparently not helping him against the police. At the police station he tries to explain that strange situation, but the officers aren’t interested in the whole story – and thus, he tells it to the reader.

Alex Woods‘ story starts with him being hit by a meteor at age 10. He survives with an injury of his brain that makes him an epileptic. As if that isn’t enough already he is bullied by his classmates for his gigantic interest in astronomy and neurology and so, one day fleeing his bullies he ends up in Mr Petersons garden.

Mr Peterson is an American, Vietnam veteran and a passionate fan of Kurt Vonnegut. Actually, he prefers to stay on his own, but he and Alex become friends pretty quickly who learns to love Kurt Vonneguts books as well. Based on their reading they start discussing profound philosophic and especially moral topics. When Mr Peterson is diagnosed with an incurable nervous disease years later, Alex has to show that he actually learned something about those topics. 

Gavin Extences first novel „The Universe vs Alex Woods“ convinces with bittersweet humor, curiosity for the world and, of course, the unspoken and yet so urgent call to think about the moral questions asked in the book yourself. The characters are likeable and the book read quickly – how else, when you can’t put it down?

"I'll give you the sun" by Jandy Nelson - Review

The twins Noah and Jude are inseperable – both are interested in art and have an artistic disposition but apart from this they are rather different. Noah, who draws, is closer to their mother, and the sewing and sculpting Jude has a better relationship with their father. Noah is an introvert original while Jude is popular and spends a lot of time with her surfer friends at the beach. Still, they are hand in glove with each other – until puberty hits and everything changes. Both want to attend the Californian School of Arts, and thus a rivalry for the mothers attention and support forms who seems to be somewhere completely else mentally. Noah discovers his homosexuality and doesn't really know how to deal with it, Jude herself makes first experiences with love, and slowly, the siblings grow apart more and more, become stranger to each other, and when their mother dies in a car accident, their connection is lost for good.

All of this is told from 13 years old Noahs point of view. Three years later, Jude tells us about the current situation where the twins' roles seem to have switched: Jude is attending art school, is seclusive, hardly cares for friendships and keeps boys away from herself, whereas Noah is cool and popular but gave up drawing. They hardly talk to each other. Jude has a hard time sculpting in school, all her clay works break mystically. She believes that her dead mothers ghost is so angry with her that she is breaking her works. Jude wants to make up for something, and for that she needs stone, a statue, and a mentor to teach her statuary. She finds that in the bizarre artist Guillermo – and with him, she finds Oscar, a mysterious English boy who makes it hard for her to hold her boycott on boys up.

Incredibly sensitive and gentle Jandy Nelson guides us through the exceptional twins' emotions. The subject of the siblings who love each other but still are in concurrence to each other is rarely found in young adult fiction in a way this unique. Jandy Nelson combines family drama, LGBT+ literature, coming of age story and, yes, a love story and manages to find an own style that is hardly comparable with other authors.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Review

I have to admit I am pretty new (read: late) to the Star Wars fandom. To be clear: I did watch the original trilogy as a teen, I also saw the prequels, but I wasn't caught yet until last year when The Force Awakens came out and my beloved boyfriend (oh such a Star Wars super-nerd) got me all hyped up - and Tumblr as well, admittedly. We went to see TFA, I loved it, I didn't stop talking about it for weeks, we went to see it again in English because we saw this video the night before and really liked Adam Drivers actual voice, I made Rey and Kylo Ren cosplays for my boyfriend and me (and spent the week before the convention in complete desperation), long story short: It got me. Which, really, wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the hype beforehand.

In comparison, Rogue One almost sneaked up upon me. To be fair, I was pretty lazy when it came to watching teasers, trailers and so on in 2016. Honestly, I haven't even seen the most recent trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 yet. I remember watching the first teaser in April but only because my friend who I was staying with at that time watched it and I was a bit hyped back then, but that's it. It all just went down a bit more quiet.
Still, because I am my boyfriends girlfriend, we went to see it the weekend right after it came out. And again a week after that in English (because this is how we roll).

In case you don't already know: Rogue One is set between the prequels and the original trilogy and tells how the plans of the Death Star are stolen and brought to Princess Leia. The team doing so is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) who worked on it's developement, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a Rebel Alliance Captain, the droid K2-SO (Alan Tudyk), the ex-Guardians of the Whills Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), a former Imperial cargo pilot, and a small squad of other rebels who choose to come with them even though the idea to steal the plan is rejected by the Rebel council.

I'm starting with the (very few) negative remarks I have because why not?
I missed the intro text. I really, really missed being greeted by a wall of yellow text descending into space. Yes, we know what happened before, we even know already what happens afterwards, but the intro text just belongs to Star Wars movies, ok?
The second point I have is the timing. I was kind of looking forward to see more of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron and was now confronted with an entirely new team inbetween. That is not inherently bad, but I think I would've enjoyed it more if Rogue One came out first or after the sequels, not inbetween. But well, this is complaining about first world problems, really.

...and that's everything negative that I can say about Rogue One. Isn't that telling? Except for those two points, I loved Rogue One. The characters had great dynamics with each other, their motives are completely legit, the story made complete sense and actually, it was pretty nice to see only "normal" people act for once instead of once again crying inside because I'm not force-sensitive. That's something, right?

Tbh, I can't write much more without spoilers, so I'll leave it as it is right now and have nothing more to say than: I can't wait for Episode VIII.