Bookseller and poet Jen Campbell has made a name for herself by quoting odd and often hilarious things people say in bookshops. For example: “What books could I buy to make guests look at my bookshelf and think: ’Wow, that guy’s intelligent’?”

Now, that question makes complete sense to me. I remember a speaker, perhaps Ravi Zacharias, saying he overheard someone ask for so many feet of books. It didn’t matter what types of books really, just important looking ones to fill up a shelf behind a union leader’s desk to make him look educated when he spoke to business owners.