Has anyone seen this Bible-eating bookstore customer?
As the public gets vaccinated, bookstores are beginning to reopen, and booksellers have been able to rekindle their relationships with their most devoted customers. For Brattle Book Shop owner Ken Gloss, the reopening process of his Boston-based used and rare books shop has been a joy; he’s finally been able to re-meet his regulars in person, some who kept in touch with him during the pandemic via almost-daily phone calls. But in an interview with Boston Public Radio, Gloss let the world know he’s still missing one of his favorite customers—the customer who eats Bibles:
[One customer] literally would eat Bibles. She would tear pages out, put them in her mouth, and eat the word of God. But it had to be Douay. She would only eat a Catholic Bible. She wouldn’t eat a King James version.
One of the things people don’t realize about West Street is that there’s a convent on West Street, and the nuns, they actually keep a specific Bible aside for her so that she doesn’t eat a lot of different ones.
She’s a really wonderful person. She actually told us once, she was getting dental work done and she wanted a chip of the Douay version put in her tooth. Again, it’s taking in the word of God.
Alas, she and Gloss lost touch during the pandemic and she hasn’t come into the store since its recent in-person reopening. Said Gloss, “We haven’t seen her for a while, so we don’t know what it is . . . she’s a wonderful woman.” So, if you’re a friend of a Bible-eater who might be this woman, let her know Brattle Book Shop has just reopened, and Ken Gloss is ready for the word to once again become flesh.
[h/t WGBH]
