Yeah, I thought he was too. After all, I was the only customer in his store (books and magazines everyhere, every which way, the kind of place I like, you find hidden treasures) - handing over my hard-earned dough to him)! He gave me a Mo Hayder novel to try, Ritual, so that was kind of nice. Next time I will quote E M Foster to him as I leave 'only connect'!!
I did purchase Koko by Peter Straub, for a princely two dollars, he did not seem to notice that. Now I am sorting over my treasure, which one to reread first...asked if the guy had any Ira Levin novels, but he had not heard of him. Oh, If I owned a bookstore....there are not many good secondhand ones left here, due to the old internet of course.
Seems he was just after getting you to spend a bit more and, via the freebie, encouraging you to go back again, though if his usual tactic is the question a customer's reading choice it's perhaps not a surprise that his shop was otherwise empty (if there was a place like that around here, I'd end up living there - though with that said, I wouldn't like having my tastes questioned. It has happened in the past, but that just flipped the switch and put me into 'Oh, so you want to talk about Literature, do you?' mode ).
As things stand, the only bookstores in my town are branches of Waterstones (used to be an Ottakar's, still a chain but a really good one with knowledgable staff who would talk books until your ears fell off, but then Waterstones bought them out and it became a bit soulless, even though most of the staff remained the same) and WH Smith. About fifteen years back, there were three second-hand/indie places, but one guy retired and couldn't find a buyer for shop and stock, another moved to a back-street location due to increased rental charges and died fairly quickly after that, while the third lingered on until 2007/08 then just seemed to close down overnight and become a Subway franchise, despite the town already having more food outlets than you could shake a (French) stick at.
No wonder minds are shrinking as waistlines expand...