[HN Gopher] What We Gain from a Good Bookstore
___________________________________________________________________
What We Gain from a Good Bookstore
Author : pseudolus
Score : 163 points
Date : 2022-08-06 11:56 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| tomhoward wrote:
| There's a great story [1] of how established Australian
| independent bookstore Readings survived the entrance of Borders
| into the market in the early 2000s.
|
| Borders opened a huge store directly over the street from
| Readings' flagship store and tried to wage a price war, whilst
| Readings kept its prices up and redoubled its efforts at
| providing a great experience to customers.
|
| Since Borders shut down in Australia in 2011, Readings has
| continued to expand and thrive, now operating seven stores in key
| locations around Melbourne, but still retaining its small-
| business, community-focused charm, and still just selling good
| books to book lovers, as it did when it first opened in the late
| 1960s.
|
| [1] https://rosshoneywill.com/articles/how-mark-rubbo-killed-
| bor...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Sorry, everyone.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I wonder if Gen Z will know book stores that aren't Barnes &
| Noble or independents who sell everything from books to socks to
| chocolate, but still call themselves bookstores.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Don't worry too much about Gen Z. They seem to be correcting
| the mistakes of the Millennial generation, and behave much more
| like Gen X than their immediate predecessors.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Great to hear. In what categories have you noticed that?
| pessimizer wrote:
| They'll know nothing about the mildew-stinking catacombs I used
| to explore. Never know the feeling of finding a bargain, or a
| book that you couldn't find any information about. Everything
| is coffee-comfortable, tastefully decorated, and overpriced.
| Every indie bookstore a chain-in-waiting.
| satiric wrote:
| We'll I do and I'm gen z, although I've inherited that from my
| mom. If not for her I don't think I would care about bookstores
| at all. Not a lot of the people I know read books these days,
| it's been replaced by TV, YouTube, and video games. Not that
| that's inherently a bad thing (there's plenty of good,
| thoughtful content and plenty of mediocre, dopamine filled
| content - just like with books) but it will be interesting to
| see how it plays out.
|
| Ultimately I think I spend too much time on these kinds of
| things anyway, and would rather spend time making something. I
| tend to find more enjoyment from actively creating rather than
| passively absorbing.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Thanks for the perspective.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| ... you can't adjust your glasses without hitting some Strand-
| branded merch
|
| The irony of this statement is all of the ads, plus a pop-up on
| the website making the criticism. The exact percentage is going
| to change based on window size, but on my desktop it's about 40%
| content, 60% ads at best. At worst, disregarding the popup, when
| the inline ads are shown, 100% of the window is ads.
| gz5 wrote:
| Work from home / hybrid shift may help? Anecdotally, folks seem
| to seek more in-person or in-community experiences when they lose
| some of what they used to get from the in-office experience.
|
| For some folks, there also seems to be a slight shift from
| prioritizing destination to prioritizing journey, and from
| efficiency to experience.
|
| These shifts may not be enough to make the business models work
| for most, but bookstores with good locations and experiences can
| sell plenty of high-margin food and beverages, and can possibly
| find new business model edges (subscription?, joint subscriptions
| w/ other businesses?, event hosting?, classes?).
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| nothing. physical bookstores and libraries are obsolete. they
| don't serve a purpose anymore.
|
| the electronic format is superior in every way - full text
| search, fully customizable/accessible reading experience. ebooks
| cost nothing to "print", transfer and store, and they don't
| degrade.
|
| a 500 GB SD card fits 25000 rather large 20 MB pdfs/epubs. a 16
| TB HDD fits 800000.
|
| it's over. and that's a good thing.
| ryanobjc wrote:
| There's a few areas where paper is vastly superior:
|
| Doesn't require power to operate
|
| The tactile experience is top notch, and makes for fast seeking
| in the book
|
| You can sell or lend the book without permission from someone
| else
|
| Edit: also books don't have dynamic tracking or affiliate links
| or scams for getting you to buy something - this is more
| apropos to websites. Still though, I hear people say that long
| form is dead and internet video/short form, or even blogs is
| the way real knowledge is passed on.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| >You can sell or lend the book without permission from
| someone else
|
| I can give you a copy of any book I own for free
| jakewalters wrote:
| Victerius wrote:
| If you want to find more secondhand books, check your local
| colleges and universities. Some have annual book fairs where
| books are sold at heavy discounts. I found some gems at such a
| fair when I went a few years ago. You need to go early though,
| because others will snatch the best titles if you don't. I also
| went there a few weeks ago to drop a load of my old textbooks,
| some of which are like new. Hopefully, they make their way into
| hands that will find a use for them.
|
| Anecdotally, I currently have an outstanding book order on Amazon
| for a title I'm convinced I wouldn't find anywhere in store. The
| title is 20+ years old and a little niche.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Try Abebooks.com, which is also owned by Amazon.
| montefischer wrote:
| Also biblio.com, which is not.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _check your local colleges and universities. Some have annual
| book fairs where books are sold at heavy discounts._
|
| In Chicago, and many other cities, larger library branches have
| a little room where the books the library doesn't want anymore
| end up.
|
| In the case of Chicago, the Harold Washington Library has a
| room with a table and stacks of books. You grab what you want
| and put a suggested donation into the box on the wall. Usually
| about 25C/ a book.
|
| In other cities, I've seen this expanded into entire miniature
| bookstores. But in those cases, they end up charging second-
| hand retail prices, which is a shame.
| akudha wrote:
| Curious, what book did you order at Amazon?
| goldcd wrote:
| I don't really think that's what the article was getting at.
| (although I'm not quite sure what it was trying to do)
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > I'm convinced I wouldn't find anywhere in store
|
| In the "old days" before Amazon, you would place a custom
| order at the book store (Not a second-hand book store) and
| it'd arrive a while later.
| mattkrause wrote:
| You still can!
|
| I was interested in a book that went for $120 on Amazon; a
| local shop ordered for me at $80 instead. It took about a
| week, so maybe a hair longer than Amazon. Oddly, I found
| the link directly from the publisher.
| jonhohle wrote:
| In my teens I nearly wore out my local library's copy of
| the Terminator 2 Illustrated Screenplay. In the late 90s,
| on a whim, I went into a B&N that had just been added to
| the mall where I worked and placed an order, even though I
| knew it had been long out of print and the likelihood of it
| ever showing up was near zero.
|
| Around a year later I got a call that my book was in and I
| could go pick it up. When I arrived, a pristine, new, old-
| stock copy was waiting for me as if it were still 1991. I
| still have that book proudly displayed - both the joy of
| its contents and its discovery will accompany it for the
| rest of my life.
|
| eBay, Amazon, Shop Goodwill have made this process
| immensely easier, but I still find joy and thrill in the
| random second hand store finds.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Now I want that book :)
| sideway wrote:
| I'm intrigued by all these comments praising second-hand
| bookstores as I've never been in one myself. My discovery methods
| are pretty simple and quite targeted.
|
| Could you name some interesting, non-fiction books you've
| discovered that would be impossible or hard to find in online
| bookstores?
| thundergolfer wrote:
| I have come to value 2nd hand bookstores so much in day to day
| life that I maintain it as an almost 'must have' when assessing
| living locations. Great coffee shops are a dime a dozen in
| reasonably affluent areas, but a good 2nd hand bookshop adds so
| much warmth and charm to an area.
|
| I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right now,
| but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that.
| (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)
|
| > Think of what's happened at the Strand, where a coffee shop
| recently joined some ground-floor bookshelves and where you can't
| adjust your glasses without hitting some Strand-branded merch.
|
| I did notice that when I was there in May. They place was
| overstuffed and too commercial. I also didn't get a sense of what
| Deutsch calls the "slow time of the browse" because I was too
| caught up keeping polite distance from the too-crowded aisles.
| waspight wrote:
| Just curious, why is second hand book stores that important? I
| imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon
| and rated in Goodreads. I am just curious and hopefully I am
| totally wrong as well.
| yojo wrote:
| I'll offer another perspective: human interaction. Good book
| stores have good staff, helpful other humans that will engage
| with you and guide you to something you would like.
|
| Computers can fill some, but not all of this role. We are
| social animals. We are hard wired to feel good when we are in
| community with other humans, and to (in cases) develop
| psychosis when deprived of that contact[1].
|
| The price of a book is trivially easy to compare, while the
| value of social interaction is hard to quantify. Replacing
| in-person commerce with online shopping because it is less
| expensive or more convenient may not be as good a deal as it
| seems.
|
| 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131183/#abs0
| 00...
| fritztastic wrote:
| Having visited many second hand bookstores in different
| cities, there are absolutely books out there worth reading
| not available online- soke will never be available online.
| There are a lot of obscure books out there- old, self-
| published, or just really niche subjects- which will never be
| popular or wanted enough to find reproduced digitally.
|
| Besides being an experience in and of themselves (used
| bookstores are often very unique and individual, sometimes
| operated by interesting people who do it out of a love of
| books or history), you can find some real gems and sometimes
| even terrible unbelievable books of decades past that would
| never be something you could find in a regular
| commercial/corporate book shop selling for profit and
| catering to whatever is on the bestseller list, what critics
| recommend, and what publishers want to sell.
|
| Besides the experience and obscure books, used bookstores
| often are the best places to meet interesting people. Some
| people, myself included, love the atmisphere of these shops-
| the smell of old books, the piles of otherwise discarded
| tomes, shelves where you can find books that were once part
| of collections curated by bibliophiles- some of these books
| have annotations on them, some of them are on very niche
| subjects not easily found elsewhere, some so old if you look
| for information online you won't find anything. I've had and
| heard some really fascinating conversations in second hand
| bookshops I don't think I would ever have experienced
| otherwise. Some of these shops are a place of community,
| where people post business cards and event posters for things
| you wouldn't readily find out about easily- some host events
| in the store itself (discussion groups, games, book clubs,
| etc). Some have very comfortable atmosphere and welcome
| people coming to just hang out, no pressure to spend money.
| Additionally there is the possibility there for you to build
| a bond with the owners/keepers, who sometimes will bring out
| books they keep off the shelves just for you.
|
| Some old book shops are absolutely packed with everything
| from textbooks to catalogues to literature- unsorted
| treasures waiting to be found. Books with no ISBN, no online
| presence whatsoever, items that cannot be found otherwise
| (unless you were looking for them specifically, and even then
| they would be really difficult to procure). There is a charm
| to be found in these shops that just cannot be replicated in
| common bookstores.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| For me personally, it's the experience and atmosphere rather
| than the availability. There's also the charm of browsing
| without looking for anything specific in mind. I know it is
| possible to be shown a random assortment of books online, but
| it doesn't compare with simply walking down the aisles and
| just scanning over all the titles for what looks interesting.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| And supporting them is supporting a faceless corporation run
| by young, ageist technocrats, where all your rights are
| squashed under DRM
| Swizec wrote:
| You can't browse Amazon, it's too in your face trying to make
| a quick buck.
|
| I just tried browsing Goodreads and it slapped me in the face
| with a gigantic Please Login Right Now You Terrible Person
| modal. Not very browsing friendly either, I guess.
|
| There is a charm to browsing a small bookstore. 2nd hand or
| otherwise. You dawdle in the aisles, meander between sections
| you'd never think to look at, catch your eye on interesting
| covers, try the heft of a book, see which ones are long and
| which are short, the design and the font give you a sense of
| character, tell you a little about what this book is like to
| read. You turn it around, read the back to learn more ...
| there is a spatial component to your search. When you stumble
| into a book that draws your attention, you're likely
| surrounded by similar books you might also enjoy.
|
| The experience is distinctly _in_ efficient. Good for when
| you don't know what you want. Might not even realize what
| you're in the mood for until you find it.
|
| And somehow you never walk out with fewer than 3 books.
| simion314 wrote:
| Just IMO, but with physical books you can open them and
| inspect the content, this might not be important for
| literature books but for more technical books you want to see
| examples. I am not from US and our online book stores do not
| allow you to electronically browse the books. Review might
| help, I wanted to buy a programming book for my son (Roblox
| sutff) and a review told me that the code listings are
| garbage and there is no actual care in the type setting of
| the book, now imagine I buy this book at the moment there is
| no such a reivew(and if the review was wrong then I avoided a
| good book), with a real store you can see for yourself, the
| downsides that the book selection might be limited for niche
| subjects.
|
| Also I think is faster to evaluate the book if you have it in
| your hands, you can immediately notice if the quality is bad
| or good, if the fonts are maybe too small so it would be hard
| to read, if the content feels padded with tons of irrelevant
| stuff, if you like the art style or language of the author.
| Is the same like when you want to buy a phone or monitor, if
| you have it in your face you can imediatly spot things you
| don't like and see the real dimensions where if you have just
| some pictures and numbers in your face it is harder.(I bought
| a watch as gift for someone and when it arrived I was shocked
| how small it is in reality, there were numbers in the
| description but numbers felt ok for me at that time)
| milesvp wrote:
| It's the type of people they attract. It's the owners who are
| often very avid readers. It's the collection of books you
| find, most of which have had some amount of curation, if only
| because of limited shelving. They are often very low margin
| so often they add charm in the same way artists do to a low
| rent neighborhood.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Because you don't know what you don't know, and neither does
| Buy'n'Large. In a second hand bookstore you'll come across
| things in the same category that are useful and important but
| don't come up in a recommendation engine because they're not
| popular. The deeper into a field you go, the more noticeable
| this is.
|
| Also, the second hand bookstore isn't maintaining a secret
| police file on every micro-action and momentary impulse you
| exhibit while inside their property.
| shever73 wrote:
| This is a thoughtful question. For me, it's the personal
| contact and supporting a local business. Amazon actively (and
| knowingly) harms the book trade and ignores the fact that its
| third-party sellers sell counterfeit items.
|
| Browsing a second-hand book store is just one surprise after
| another. I've found books I never knew existed, but instantly
| fell in love with. I whiled away many hours in second hand
| bookshops when I visited Edinburgh.
|
| When it comes to new books, making a purchase at a local book
| store can really make a difference. Last year, I wanted to
| upgrade my ebooks of The Art Of Programming to the print
| editions. I could buy it from Amazon, but asking my local
| book store to order in the items was a wonderful experience
| on so many levels. The cost was a little, but not a
| significant amount, higher, but it allowed for some great
| interactions in the shop. Now, I pop in every couple of
| weeks, have a chat with the owner and get fantastic
| recommendations.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I imagine that everything worth reading is available on
| Amazon and rated in Goodreads._
|
| Then you should broaden your imagination.
|
| Amazon and Goodreads have barely a fraction of one percent of
| the books that were published. And that's just in English.
|
| It's like saying "Anything worth watching is on streaming,"
| even though less than 5% of the world's video content ever
| made the translation from film to VHS to DVD to streaming. Or
| paper to records to tape to CD to streaming.
|
| There's a whole vast world of content out there beyond the
| internet. Once you discover this, it's like taking a pill in
| The Matrix.
|
| (My metaphor might be off there, as I've never seen The
| Matrix, but from what I understand from other people's
| conversations, that should work.)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Where are you getting your count of books available on
| Amazon?
|
| I'd be curious how this compares with LibGen / ZLibrary
| (about 4--5 million titles).
| fritztastic wrote:
| I understand your metaphor in the sense that The Matrix is
| a scifi adaptation of the allegory of the cave. The concept
| that commercial/online bookstores are where items worth
| finding will be found is like thinking the shadows of the
| cave are the only thing worth seeing. You are correct,
| there is so much content there be found, which isn't
| limited/controlled by what the big market values.
|
| Additionally those are very good points about English and
| streaming. There are books out there which are not
| translated and not digitized, which are absolutely worth
| reading, and will not be found anywhere besides private
| collections, used bookstores, flea markets, estate sales.
| Some of these books were originally purchased long ago
| and/or far away, just because they are not popular enough
| to be easily found does not mean they are not worh finding.
| bombcar wrote:
| A friend of my dad is a professional book hound, and he
| says it amuses him when he sees others who can't
| understand what to do with a book that doesn't have an
| isbn.
| MikusR wrote:
| > Amazon and Goodreads have barely a fraction of one
| percent of the books that were published. And that's just
| in English.
|
| Source?
| [deleted]
| bananamerica wrote:
| Used bookstores are great for discovery, you often end up
| with something random and unexpected that you would never buy
| on a digital storefront.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Aside from other stuff listed: Local businesses enrich the
| local economy, while buying from amazon does not
|
| Also I'd suggest checking out a good local bookstore, it's a
| whole different and IMO a more wholesome and relaxing
| experience.
| pradn wrote:
| The Strand is only worth going to as a tourist attraction (if
| you're fully aware of its status as such), or if you need big
| art books (they're unmatched in that category).
|
| In NY, I'd say take a look at Left Bank books (rare, old
| literature, photography, art books - some are even early
| editions of classics), Codex (little used shop with a fantastic
| selection), Mercer St Books and Records (basement hole in the
| wall), Westsider Rare and Used books (an UWS classic),
| Unnameable Books (good events and a literary selection).
|
| For new books, McNally Jackson is the preferred one for the
| reading public. Their staff selections are useful and they have
| a dedicated poetry and chapbook section.
| sthu11182 wrote:
| I agree on Westsider. However, I always liked the Strand for
| its collection of history, science, and math books. While
| Strand can be crowded and touristy, it still has a good
| collection of books.
| euroderf wrote:
| They have the books, but be prepared for life on a ladder
| if you really want to dig in.
| ghaff wrote:
| The Strand is one of the places/attractions/etc. that it's
| easy for locals to dump on a bit because it's something
| popular with tourists. But the reality is that they can be
| a lot of fun.
|
| The last time I was in NYC, I was really hurting because of
| not one but two bad hamstrings cause by hockey. I could
| barely walk--which is not a great combination with NYC. I
| had some time and took a Circle Line cruise. It was
| delightful and I hadn't done it since I was a child!
| sidpatil wrote:
| My favorite is East Village Books. I've had luck finding
| interesting books there.
| kingkawn wrote:
| The one true bookstore in nyc is Book Thug Nation in
| Williamsburg. The best curated selection of used literature
| I've ever come across and a smattering of other stuff too.
| integrale wrote:
| If you end up in Manhattan: Mercer Street Books, Alabaster
| Bookshop, and Joanne Hendricks Cookbooks are some of my
| favorites. The latter two aren't necessarily cheap but have
| some really cool stuff.
| sircastor wrote:
| > I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right
| now, but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that.
| (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)
|
| Unfortunately, Fox Books put all the small, independent stores
| out of business.
| [deleted]
| jhbadger wrote:
| I know you are making a reference to 1998's "You've Got
| Mail!", but that movie was (besides being based on the
| earlier movie 1940's "The Shop Around The Corner" hence Meg
| Ryan's store, and the Hungarian play _that_ movie was based
| on), inspired by the story of how NYC 's Shakespeare & Co.
| bookstore was driven out of business by a new Barnes & Noble
| nearby. That Barnes & Noble has since closed itself.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Wait wait wait. I had to look this up myself: there exists
| a bookstore chain in New York City and Philly called
| _Shakespeare & Co_? And it appears to have no relationship
| at all with the uberfamous Shakespeare and Company
| bookstore in Paris? This is a bit like naming your new
| restaurant chain "The French Laundry". How could they be
| allowed to do this?
| jhbadger wrote:
| To be fair, even the current Paris-based bookstore of the
| name isn't the "real" one founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919
| (that closed in 1941). I think the various bookstores of
| the name today do so in honor of Beach's store so they
| don't really claim ownership of the name.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| No, that is _not at all_ fair. This wasn 't a cold
| business decision.
|
| George Whitman, who founded the current Paris bookstore,
| and Sylvia Beach, who founded the original, were very
| close friends. She even toyed with reopening her original
| shop with him, again under the name Shakespeare and
| Company. Two years after she died, he renamed his
| bookstore (Le Mistral) to Shakespeare and Company _in her
| memory_ in 1964, as he thought that 's what she would
| have liked. He also named his only daughter after her. As
| it happens, the second Shakespeare and Company also
| became a hub for authors like Langston Hughes, Richard
| Wright, James Baldwin, and many of the Beats. It's the
| sister shop of City Lights in San Francisco, with a
| similar author history. Whitman was awarded the _Officier
| de l 'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres._ His daughter now
| runs the store.
|
| So in Paris there were two Shakespeare and Company
| bookstores, both extremely famous at different critical
| times in literary history, whose respective owners were
| very close, and which were both basically set up the same
| way. I think it's reasonable to say that they're both the
| "real" Shakespeare and Company. That's a far cry from the
| NYC situation.
| timst4 wrote:
| When you walk down the quai along the Seine in Paris, there are
| used book kiosks for kilometers. The bouquinistes have been there
| for many years and maybe they are the true enduring heart of
| French values. Americans consume TV like the French read books,
| at least in the capital. It is no surprise the overall awareness
| of the population is far more attuned to the realities of a
| modern world. America has outsourced their perception of the
| world to megacorporations hell bent on profit. Reading is an
| ethical act, and it is also a necessary one (we are finding out)
| for Democracy.
| pseudolus wrote:
| The bouquinistes might conjure up romantic notions of a book-
| loving French population but the reality is a little more
| complex. Bouquinistes are regulated and apparently are required
| to allocate three out of every four boxes of merchandise to
| books. This apparently is causing them some financial hardship
| as many are located in areas frequented by non-francophone
| tourists and, given the choice, many would prefer to sell
| postcards and the omnipresent models of the Eiffel Tower that
| everyone takes home with them. [0].
|
| [0] https://publishingperspectives.com/2010/10/paris-seine-
| side-...
| throwaway821909 wrote:
| That the problem is apparently only in tourist areas is
| further evidence that the French love books, if anything
| vonnik wrote:
| One of the great thing about the physical sites of used-book
| stores, which I've never seen replicated in an online store, is
| their ability to surface books you'd never know to look for. It's
| not just curation, but the accumulation of curation over many
| years, and the willingness to leave interesting books on the
| shelves to wait for the right reader.
|
| Great second-hand book stores are riddled with wormholes into
| past civilizations and cultures, maybe just a few decades old,
| that no one ever bothered to name or remember, outside the
| wormhole of the book. So I guess they make the past more
| discoverable. And by discovering those lost cultures we can
| understand the trajectory of our culture, its effervescence and
| loose ends and lost causes. Which is great for understanding our
| own time.
|
| Rant: American culture seems fascinated with time travel and
| alien intelligence, as though they were things just out of reach,
| when in fact, we're surrounded with time travel and alien
| intelligence that we manage to ignore. The books are the time
| travel. The ravens/dolphins/dogs/elephants are the alien
| intelligence.
| ryanobjc wrote:
| It's really interesting - we've seemingly given up on curation
| and discovery on the internet. There's just too much spam and
| scam to really make it work. Take your average recipe website:
| it includes multiple paragraphs of irrelevant "background
| story" to delay you seeing the recipe for more ad views.
|
| Whereas books and libraries have none of that cruft. If you
| want to learn something the library (or bookstore) is a much
| better place - the books don't come with dynamic ads and
| affiliate links to encourage you to buy something.
| elliekelly wrote:
| It's not just with books, either. I think the deliberate
| inefficiency is a selling point for a lot of brick & mortar
| stores now. In second hand stores and stores like Home Goods
| or Five Below you have to sift through a bunch of
| disorganized crap to maybe find something you didn't even
| know you wanted. It's like loot box shopping, I guess.
| me_smith wrote:
| I absolutely enjoy finding a used bookstore while exploring a new
| town or city. I can't help but meander through the dusty, over
| stocked aisles overflowing with old and new books. The
| personality of the store is not just built from the owner but
| also the surrounding community and the books they read. Some
| stores have large science fiction sections; some have larger
| history sections; and some may even have an actual engineering or
| computer science section.
|
| During one of my meanderings, I found "Structure and
| Interpretation of Computer Programming" (SICP) lying under
| computer reference books on the top shelf. I got the old rickety
| foot stool, pulled the book down and found it was in decent
| shape, so I had to buy it. And yes, I know I can read it for free
| online.
|
| If anyone is in the San Jose, CA area, check out the Recycle
| Bookstore. One of my favorites.
| rr808 wrote:
| Meh, I really dont miss bookstores, and I suspect most people who
| claim to love them are exaggerating. I dont read as much as I
| used to, my local library is good and online is much cheaper and
| convenient. What is cool is second hand books if you can get
| browse for something interesting cheap that you didn't know you
| wanted.
| wrycoder wrote:
| It's also true in new bookstores that by browsing the stacks,
| you find books you didn't know existed and are interesting.
| Amazon does a very poor job of that - even the top 100 in a
| category are not as interesting as the selection in my local
| small bookstore in the same category. That's because the local
| bookstore is curated. Amazon is sorted by "popularity".
|
| The Harvard Coop was about the last good technical bookstore in
| my area, but it's been dumbed down, and now just mostly carries
| the pop science stuff, like other bookstores.
|
| I haven't been in the MIT Coop since they moved for the second
| time. They used to be right in the middle of the campus.
| bwanab wrote:
| I read a lot and every day. 90% of my reading has been on my
| iPad in the last several years because I agree it's just much
| more convenient. Despite that, I still love the ambiance of a
| good bookstore.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I'm a constant reader, and I'm doing more reading on my
| devices, using Kindle and Libby for books that I'm only going
| to read once. I have way too many books in my house, and I
| actually don't have enough time left to finish reading them
| all!
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I'm glad that these other venues work for you, but don't assume
| that everyone else values the same experiences as you. Speaking
| personally, I find that a physical used book store has many
| practical and aesthetic advantages over an online store. (An
| example of a practical benefit for me is discovering new
| writers.)
|
| I know many people who in actuality love and prefer a physical
| bookstore. This is evinced by many profitable bookstores in my
| area (both new and used).
| WolfeReader wrote:
| "I suspect most people who claim to love them are
| exaggerating."
|
| I can't imagine why a person would either think, or write, this
| sentence. Most people are being honest when they say they enjoy
| a thing.
| fritztastic wrote:
| I'd chalk it up to an egocentric assumption, because it's not
| hard to accept people love things. I don't care much for old
| cars but I understand that for some people it's a huge
| passion they have a lot of love for and they're not
| exaggerating when they mention how much it means to them.
|
| Some people (myself included) genuinely love bookstores in
| general and used bookstores specifically. It's not an
| exaggeration, if I lived near a good bookstore I would be
| there regularly.
| rr808 wrote:
| My reasoning is that loads of people I meet say they love
| books and bookstores - but when I go to one of the few
| bookstores left in my area they're mostly empty, or usually
| mostly families looking for kids books.
| padolsey wrote:
| I'm probably one of those people who waxes lyrical about
| bookstores but don't really find myself in them nowadays.
| To me it's a special experience tho. I experience them like
| museums and there are very few left (!!) that are imbued
| with that character of poetic chaos and serendipity. The
| only book shops left may indeed only be frequented by the
| demographics that keep the margins nice and fat. So I
| suppose there's a hidden bias in your observation.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Because it reinforces his own assumptions and prejudices.
| It's a way of justifying a thought that is easily disproven.
|
| By portraying someone who doesn't think the way you do as a
| bad person (in this case, a liar), this person elevates
| themselves, in their own mind.
|
| It's pretty much seventh-grade logic.
| mattkrause wrote:
| A (good) public library may also scratch a lot of the same
| itches: you can browse the stacks, they sometimes have
| events and "staff picks", etc.
| closedloop129 wrote:
| >What an unparalleled activity it is to browse a bookstore in a
| state of curiosity and receptivity, chewing one's intellectual
| cud!" This isn't the cheap, fast-food browse of the scroll but,
| rather, something more meditative, more nutritious.
|
| >Deutsch's bookseller is a cross between a curator, rabbi
| (Deutsch comes from an Orthodox Jewish background), and gardener.
| "Our work is to select and assemble, making the discordant wilds
| of bookish inquiry manageable," he writes.
|
| In other words, a better link aggregator. What does it take to
| create that depth online?
| swayvil wrote:
| Have you ever thought that this whole "dream evocation and
| amplification via text-consumption" thing might be a dead end? I
| mean, 99.999% of the meaning is coming from your own head anyway.
| And there is this powerful and toxic illusion of "knowing", which
| ain't good.
|
| It's basically solipsism-opium. Might be a bad trade.
| ryanobjc wrote:
| Isn't this argument a fancier version of "civilization is
| dumb"?
| widowlark wrote:
| Amazon proved that it takes more than low price to sell a good
| book. Thats why their physical stores are gone
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I am enraged that the local anarchist secondhand bookstore and
| lending library was replaced right before I moved here by condos
| and a brunch place.
| bombomdifgity wrote:
| solmanac wrote:
| Make an anarchist zine and distribute it at that brunch place.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| For anyone else wondering, the one in Montreal on St Laurent is
| still there according to Google Maps.
| mattkrause wrote:
| I thought it had turned into a spa or some such.
|
| Will report back later--it's hot out now!
| selimthegrim wrote:
| There was a makerspace I went to in Montreal which I wonder
| if it's still active.
|
| E: it was Foulab, so looks like it still is.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Wrong New World French city ;)
| JasonFruit wrote:
| There are several good independent bookstores in Madison, WI, the
| medium-sized college town near which I live, and I'm happy to say
| that most seem to be well-supplied with customers who actually
| buy books, and have not resorted to the shenanigans this article
| describes.
|
| One of my favorites, Leopold's, does have a small coffee shop
| that serves the best coffee in town. That's not what makes me
| love it, though: its small collection is arranged by country (or
| in some cases region), and it's exquisitely selected. Every time
| I go in, I find several books that I would never have noticed or
| thought to search for in a more traditionally-arranged bookstore:
| Turkish religious wisdom stories, a history of the Russian
| revolution, a volume of Sholom Aleichem's stories, the
| autobiography of a woman who lost her family to the Khmer Rouge
| -- it's a treasure of a collection. I expect to keep going back
| there for a long time.
|
| I wonder if other bookstores could stand out like that by
| structuring their collections in a way that helps their customers
| find interesting things they might not otherwise look for. I
| think -- though I'm no expert -- that most people go into a
| bookstore thinking not, "I need to find a copy of _X_ ," but "I
| hope I find something good to read!" A bookstore that solves the
| second problem connects better with actual customers.
|
| A quibble with the article:
|
| > "Browsing" itself is an agricultural term, he points out, in
| one of his book's many divagations, often entertaining but
| sometimes a bit twee, on the culture and language of
| bibliophilia: it's what cows do in a field, and only started to
| be used to describe reading habits in the nineteenth century.
|
| Cows don't browse; they graze, evenly cutting the omnipresent
| grass. Goats are browsers, picking bits of what they believe are
| the tastiest, most nourishing plants, and leaving the ones they
| don't care for.
| blockwriter wrote:
| Madison has a great small business community in general. I am
| always really impressed by the number of small, independent
| establishments of good quality when I go.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The analogy seems to fit goats a little better anyway. And we'd
| all like to be goats, right? Nobody wants to be a cow. I wonder
| if the specification of the ruminant was an addition by author
| of the article, and not really what was originally intended.
|
| > "Books, like the leaves and shrubs known as the browsage,
| provide ruminant-readers with their nutrients," Deutsch opines,
| at his purplest. "What an unparalleled activity it is to browse
| a bookstore in a state of curiosity and receptivity, chewing
| one's intellectual cud!"
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I agree that it's a quibble with the article, not Deutsch.
| BurritoAlPastor wrote:
| Ironic that this review of a memoir about bookstores starts off
| by linking to it on Amazon.
| neovive wrote:
| Just noticed that as well :). It also looks like an affiliate
| link.
| O__________O wrote:
| Yes, the "tag" parameter in an Amazon.com URL means it is an
| affiliate link.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Amazon is a bookstore.
| BurritoAlPastor wrote:
| Fine, you pedant, it's ironic that a textually sympathetic
| review of a memoir lionizing the virtues of secondhand brick-
| and-mortar bookstores, while fretting about their continuing
| viability as a business model, would link to the book on
| Amazon, a online-only store commonly considered to be the
| primary disruptor to that business model. Happy?
| egypturnash wrote:
| Amazon is a huge e-commerce site that operates with brutal
| efficiency. It started out as a book seller but it is now a
| place you can buy pretty much anything, with zillions of
| third parties selling merchandise of dubious provenance
| through them.
|
| As it grew from a book seller to what it is now, Amazon took
| a huge amount of business away from both the small
| booksellers that this book discussed in this article is
| mostly talking about, and the larger chain bookstores that
| were crushing a lot of those small booksellers underfoot at
| the time.
|
| Hence, the irony: the first link is to buy a copy of this
| book about the virtues of small bookstores _on Amazon_ , the
| company that ate a huge percentage of American retail stores,
| starting with books.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Like a catalog is a bookstore.
| dymk wrote:
| RIP Amazon Four Star stores (which were brick and mortar
| stores that sold, among much else, books)
| [deleted]
| prepend wrote:
| I love bookstores (like most people in this thread, I assume) and
| notice the mtv-ization where they sell more stuff that book
| people like than actually books (puzzles, games, journals, art
| supplies).
|
| I wonder if this is a spiral to try to stave off eventual closure
| or the future where there will be one shelf of books and the rest
| "book culture."
|
| Nothing makes me happier than going into a book store and seeing
| a huge stack of outbound internet sales to be mailed out.
| erickhill wrote:
| Plus, small local bookstores have no idea who you are (in
| general) when you walk in the front door. No tracking codes, no
| "browsing history" in your back pocket.
|
| You get to have full and total anonymity (even if you're a
| regular, your path through the store will be yours and yours
| alone). You can browse the aisles and look at any old book's
| spine you please, pull it off the shelf and read the inside cover
| or maybe some employee notes on a card if there are any.
|
| And the next time you come in, that book won't be in the front
| window since you touched it. You can start the whole process over
| again.
| teddyh wrote:
| This is overwhelmingly the reason why I prefer to shop local
| instead of buying anything online.
| redelbee wrote:
| I love used bookstores and my retail business is right next door
| to one that I mostly despise. The shelves are literally
| overflowing and there is no rhyme or reason to shelf
| organization. The prices are high, which I normally wouldn't mind
| because usually it comes with great curation or presentation or a
| point of view. But this shop has none of those redeeming
| qualities. The employees also don't seem to care about reading or
| books, other than to point out how quickly some categories of
| books fly off the shelves. It's all very transactional.
|
| It's the weirdest experience because I want so badly for it to be
| like other shops I've browsed and loved. I've even considered
| opening my own bookshop down the street to fulfill my desire for
| a great used book shop in my city. Maybe someday.
| carvking wrote:
| You can pickup your favorite "Pocket folding folding tool for
| outdoor camping." ?
|
| https://www.amazon.com//dp/B0B5ZRBGWP
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