The Power of The Handsell

Probably the best thing about being a bookseller is the chance the be an evangelist for a book one loves. This is known as The Handsell. (I'm sure car dealers and pet shop owners do handselling too, but sharing a favorite book somehow seems more.....lofty).

The most recent issue of Filmmaker Magazine (the magazine of independent film) has a profile of "A-list hollywood scribe" Leslie Dixon (Mrs. Doubtfire, Outrageous Fortune, etc.) and her forthcoming film Limitless. Here's the part of the story that caught our eye:

"That Dixon...would have a problem scoring gigs writing darker, yet still mainstream, movies seems a bit crazy, but that’s today’s Hollywood, where writers are ruthlessly compartmentalized based on gender, age and past credits. Of the edgier material Dixon delights in as a viewer, “I don’t think people will offer me [these films],” she says. “But needing work is not where I am in my life right now. What turns me on is more important.”

"Looking for something that turned her on was how Limitless got started. “Every so often I get depressed by the things people are developing,” she says, “and I go to the Green Apple bookstore in San Francisco. I ask them what’s good just so I can cleanse my palette.” The store recommended Alan Glynn’s The Dark Fields. “I wasn’t looking for a novel to adapt,” she says. “But halfway through I got a weird tingling feeling that ‘this is mine.’”

“The premise of the novel was good,” Dixon says. “What if a loser slacker guy gets a smart drug? I knew an actor would want to play that part. It would be fun to watch out-of-shape, crappy-clothes Bradley Cooper have his girlfriend dump him because he’s a loser and then three weeks later he’s in a fancy suit bamboozling Robert De Niro.”

Read the whole article here.

The above handsell must have taken place a few years ago (unless it was a used copy), because the last time we sold a new copy of that book was in 2006. Before that, we'd sold some 500+ copies off of the staff favorites display. It has been out of print for a while, but it will be reprinted in March with the movie cover, all because a bookseller here at Green Apple Books read a book and loved it enough to handsell it. Watch the trailer here.