The Used Bookstore Experience

Over the years I've visited and frequented a large number of stores selling used books.  I've found that there are certain characteristics that can make for a not-so-pleasant expedition in search of literary treasure.

• If the aisles are too narrow, I can't back up enough to be able to easily scan a shelf of titles.
• If the lighting is poor and I need a flashlight to read the titles, I get very annoyed.  There's a bookstore in Melbourne, Florida that has very narrow aisles and poor lighting and I won't be going back.
• If the books are not arranged logically, or only partly arranged, I don't have the patience to poke through them.  One store I know organizes the books into categories like art, religion, transportation, etc., but then doesn't bother to alphabetize the books by either author or title.
• If I have to find a ladder - or heaven forbid a worker licensed to climb a bookshelf ladder - I'm going to look somewhere else unless I'm pretty desperate.

I realize that there may be treasures overlooked because others also don't like narrow, unlit aisles of poorly arranged and inaccessible tomes.  But these factors take a lot of the fun out of it all.

Finally, one of my biggest pet peeves has nothing to do with the store and everything to do with fellow shoppers.  So many people will walk between me and the shelf I'm looking at without so much as the slightest apology that if I see someone approaching I will frequently move closer to the shelf so they have to go around me.  Whatever happened to common courtesy?