BOOK BARN

#265. SMILING SWEETLY LIKE A WELL-FED BABY.  Worst customer service story ever:  I was working in a foreign-language bookshop in Cambridge, and a woman came in and told me she was looking for a gift and wanted to have something humorous in German.  I told her jokingly this was a contradiction in terms.  Bad call: she scowled.  I brought her hastily to the store manager, the best-read person in human history.  She told him she wanted something humorous in German.  He snorted.

#264: ART OBJECTS: LOST OR STOLEN OR STRAYED-II.  In Boston in 1990, two men disguised as policemen gained entry to the Isabella Stewart...

#263. THE THIRD TURNING OF THE WHEEL.  I doubt that anyone would ever suggest that the Buddhist sutras, in the original or in English...