It’s no secret where exactly in Cambridge I work and what famous university I stare at out my office window each day. Working in Harvard square has its advantages and disadvantages just like any other place I imagine. Since I don’t work for the university, I can say what I want about it (biting the hand that feeds you can be dumb). Harvard takes itself very seriously. But I can’t imagine anyone beyond this mile radius actually caring to read a 300 page book about Larry Summers and his exploits. Sure he chased off Cornel West and pissed off a lot of other professors (do I have stories about famous people and their bad behavior in my store—some of them will act like total asses just to get their book in the damn window. But I digress…), but so what? Apparently Richard Blow (teehee) now Richard Bradley is writing a book on Summers—without Summers help. Like Alex Beam says, “I can see maybe 500 copies sold at the Harvard Bookstore; after that, who knows?”

Update: Comments are still broken over here and no one seems to be able to fix it. Until they works again, I am just going to post comments at the end of the original post. So keep commenting!

Edward J. Renehan Jr. says:

Behaving badly in Harvard Square bookstores seems to be something of a tradition. My dear, departed father-in-law, Bill Bartkovick, managed the the Harvard Square Barnes & Noble through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. (That would be the OLD B&N corporation, btw, owned by the Barnes family.) Bill was full of stories about the likes of Van Wyck Brooks throwing hissy fits when books were not featured prominently enough.

Leila says:

I worked in a Harvard Square bookstore for a few years, and I was horrified by the behavior of customers and authors alike. Whether it was drunken college students groping each other in full view of everyone, people shoving dirty diapers under the bookshelves, or authors screaming about the placement of their books, I was constantly surprised at the pure gall of people. I do miss the galleys, though.