Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam

Posted by: Clare Swindlehurst on Sunday, September 13, 2009
2 responses
2009

Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam is a glimpse into the life of a checkout girl

My Book Review rating: 3 Stars – mildly amusing but would have been better as a blog than a book!

According to the cover Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam is an international bestseller, published in ten languages – and the Daily Telegraph thought it made “compelling reading”; I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree…

Anna Sam has pulled together a series of anecdotes in a sort of ‘day in the life’ of a supermarket checkout girl. Having worked in a retail store during my college years and knowing exactly what customers are like I was really looking forward to reading this book. I was expecting it to be “fall on the floor with laughter” funny – and was really disappointed.

The anecdotes are there, and it could be a wonderful book to while away a few hours when you are felling blue and need a lift, but it’s just lacking – something. The edge that really brings out the humour – and I wonder if something has been lost in translation.

As I was reading the book I was thinking how much better it would be as a blog – I can imagine if one of these tales landed in my Google Reader once in a while I’d stop and read them and raise a smile. I think that it did start out life in just that guise, which goes to show that sometimes blog content should be left on the Internet where it belongs!

Have you read Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought.