Shaun Bythell owns since twenty years a second-hand bookshop somewhere in Scotland. He has had ample time to see all types of customers and attempts in this book to build a taxonomy of them. This classification is hilarious. You can find the Genus: Peritus (Expert) who will explain your job to you, the Genus: Homo qui desidet (loiterer) / Species : Homo qui opera erotica legit (erotica browser) who will hide reading erotic books in the railway section or the Genus : Familia Juvenis / Species : Puer relictus (abandoned child) who will dump their kids in the library and go shopping elsewhere. I found myself in several of these readers. A good moment of laughter.
“From my experience in the shop, people who study family history are usually doing so to make a point, and it’s usually a fairly petty one. But ten generations is 300 years. Someone, during those three centuries, has had an affair with a butler or a maid. Someone has pissed in your gene pool, however pure you believe your lineage is.”