Melanie Carling’s life is an open book
Anyone who has purchased or rented textbooks from the Barnes & Noble campus bookstore, has probably chatted with Melanie Carling.
Carling wears glasses and her hair short with a long, thin braid that drapes down the back of her Barnes & Noble T-shirt.
She has become a familiar face to USF St. Petersburg students and is known to spark conversations with customers at the checkout counter, often sharing her knowledge of books and telling stories.
Carling, 57, has been in the book business for over 30 years and has worked at the campus bookstore since 2009. From librarian to bookseller, she finds no other career comparable.
“It is not a job, it’s a vocation,” she said.
Carling, who has been an avid reader since childhood, said the first book that stirred her lifelong admiration for literature was “To Kill a Mockingbird.” She’s read it 12 times.
“It painted a picture of what I have seen and heard in my own life.”
After high school, she chose not to continue on to college.
Her knowledge stems from reading newspapers, researching world topics and watching TV news, particularly Al-Jazeera America.
“I just pay attention to what goes on in the world,” she said.
She prides herself as a native Floridan, having worked at a Disney World restaurant and the Sheraton Lakeside Inn in Kissimmee.
“If you are a native Floridan…you must work at a hotel, restaurant and amusement park,” she said. “And I have done all three.”
At the Sheraton Lakeside Inn, Carling met her husband Jim of 33 years, a keyboard player who once sang doo-wop songs on New York City streets. He has toured with several bands including Joey Dee and the Starliters, a popular group from the ’60s.
Carling made her start in the business as a librarian before working at the now-defunct Bookstop in Sarasota and later joined a Barnes & Noble superstore.
She moved to St. Petersburg in 2002 and worked at the Barnes & Noble in South Tampa before transferring to the USFSP location seven years later.
Through her years with the company, Carling said she has witnessed eccentric and obscene behavior, particularly at the larger stores.
“There was always something going on at the restrooms or the religion section,” she said. “The restrooms are ground zero for strange activities.”
Incidents include flashers, panhandlers, intruding customers and sexual activities.
USFSP’s bookstore is less hectic, but to Carling it is “stranger than fiction.”
“When I first worked here, it looked liked Alice in Wonderland because hardly anything happened here,” she said, pointing out the odd, docile atmosphere.
But the past followed her.
She noted a couple of flashers and other absurd occurrences had made appearances at the store over the years.
Her favorite Florida author, Tim Dorsey, writes crime caper stories that are set in the state. His books are notable for the protagonist Serge A. Storms, a serial killer who has been compared to the front runner in Showtime’s popular series, Dexter.
“He (Dorsey) got to the character first,” she said.
She admires Dorsey’s research on Florida’s indigenous areas. His book “The Big Bamboo” mentions a local bar where celebrities, criminals and even Carling’s parents once visited.
“If anyone wants to know more of Florida, his books are the best.”
Carling is currently reading “Hitler’s Furies,” which details a German women who joined the Third Reich.
Though books have filled her with knowledge, Carling said she’s not as in tune with the digital world. Being labeled a “non-techno person,” she has shown some resistance with technology since computers became mainstream.
But after realizing the advantages of technology, Carling has attempted to catch up with the new trends – buying herself a flip-phone, tablet and, most recently, a laptop.
Aside from selling books, she describes the store as her soapbox, where she can “contribute to the greater good.”
Store manager Jay Hartfield said Carling is the store’s “number one asset.”
