NPR has a sweet, hilarious story about Broadhursts Bookshop in Southport, England, which tweeted on Saturday that it had sold a book that had been on its shelves since May 1991. "We always knew its day would come," the store wrote in part.
The title was a children's biography of William the Conqueror bought by an "older gentleman who was buying several books on the Norman Conquest of Britain for his grandson," Joanne Ball, the bookseller who sold the book, told NPR.
Many people commented on the Tweet. Author Sarah Todd Taylor imagined the moment of sale after 27 years: "The book held its breath. It had hoped so often, only to have that hope crushed. Hands lifted it from the shelf, wrapped it warmly in paper. As the door closed on its past life, the book heard the soft cheers of its shelfmates."
Booksellers offered tales of other titles that had remained on the shelves for years. One wrote: "I worked at a bookshop that had a copy of Piers Morgan's autobiography. I worked there 2 different times in 4 years, and we never sold it, even when it was reduced to 1p! It's probably still there."
After Broadhursts replied, "Can't say we are hugely surprised," the original poster wrote: "It became shorthand for an impossible task: 'You're more likely to sell that Piers Morgan book than...' "
A reader offered to purchase titles that languish on the shelves, tweeting, "You know when people go to dog shelters and say I want to take home the dog who has been here longest. I'm going to do this in bookstores. 'Can you point me to the book you've had here the longest?' That will be some random book collection! I will liberate these books!"