You’ll recall that earlier I expressed some skepticism that the Corner was, in the words of one reader, “the blog where conservative pundits habitually whine about the nasty looks they get from the nose-pierced clerk at Barnes & Noble when they buy the Collector’s Edition of ‘Why Reagan is God, Part XXXVIII’ – hyperventilating as if they’re one step away from the gulag.” The reader in question responded:

You mean to say you are sincerely unaware of this phenomenon? Wow.

He then offered the following evidence from the NR vaults – a letter from an American reader, a letter from a Canadian reader, and Derb on a roll:

Practically all the people who work in bookstores are granola-eating, mountain-bike-riding, Nation-reading, NPR-listening, Dean-voting, nail-biting, bedwetting L-E-F-T-I-E-S, who scratch one side of their head with the opposite hand, collect old Peter, Paul & Mary LPs, and think that Bill O’Reilly is a beastly bully. They HIDE books by any author to the right of Al Franken. This is a well-known fact.

Don’t think he’s hyperventilating about the gulag, is he? Sounds more like he’s having a grand old time. The gulag shtick’s more the left’s bag. For what it’s worth, though, I’m very partial to Barnes & Noble. In Washington a couple of months back, I was at the branch that’s near the Mayflower and I was pleased to see they’d stuck my book on the front table next to The Playboy Book Of Celebrity Nudes. I was even more pleased to see some fellow slink by, pick up the Playboy and then, discretion getting the better part of valor, slip it under a copy of my book and saunter nonchalantly to the checkout. No complaints about Barnes & Noble from me. It’s the one-stop shop for all your Steyn-demographic-doom-mongering and Nancy-Sinatra-and-Victoria-Principal-with-their-kit-off needs.