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...