Big box retail bookstores seem particularly inept at finding books they haven’t decided to go out of their way to stock. And if you talk to anyone below guru status at the stores themselves, they seem incapable of finding anything out. When I worked as a temp in customer service for a publisher, and tried picking up copies of books that I knew (because I had full access to the catalog at work) to be in print, and could even give them the phone number and operating hours for the correct call center for the bookstore to order the book in question, I was told things were out of print, only available on a special order (takes 8 weeks, even though the distribution center that stocks that book happens to be where the call center is — five miles from the book store in question,) and so forth. Blew my mind.

Anyway, the moral is: order online. The big box system is broken for anything harder than finding Anne Rice and JK Rowling.

BTW, I’m absolutely certain that customers hide/move things; I’ve seen people do it. Admittedly, I tend to be the kind of customer who brings stacks of mis-sorted books to the front counter, because I’m insulted when Soviet history ends out in the Russian language section, and romance in the science fiction. The Soviet one I could see being an employee error, but I think the bodice ripper was self-evidently not a Star Trek TNG novel. Especially given the shortage of pink books in the scifi/fantasy shelving region. Anyway, erroneous customer re-stocking is common in every retail environment I’ve ever been in, even before factoring in any bias or distaste for the subject materials.

I’d be curious to see what the “upcoming and recent books” lists at these B&Ns say. Usually they’re pretty good about flagging new stuff on both sides (I think they’re generated at the corporate level.)