The ABA has a well-earned dismal reputation. Back in 2021, the ABA apologized for a ‘violent incident’ that it was responsible for. What exactly was the ‘violent incident’ that the ABA apologized for? Including a copy of ‘Irreversible Damage’ (by Abigail Shrier) in its monthly ‘white box’ distribution. That’s so crazy you can't make it up.
Perhaps the flaw is trying to search for spiritual or emotional satisfaction in commerce? I find satisfaction in reading; I view the search for good books as a necessary evil, facilitated by book reviews in journals and the NYT/WSJ along with Amazon-driven recommendations, which are shockingly accurate. I have never, in many years at many bookstores before the advent of Amazon, ever had a useful recommendation from a store owner or employee . And I certainly don't enjoy time idly talking about random titles with people I have never met. For somebody growing up in a small town with small retailers, Borders and B&N were blessings; so too were the large university-town bookstores. But the blessing was their number of titles and the probability that an elusive title was stocked. Amazon has blown all of that away, and for me, is truly all I need when it comes to reading. I don't need a corporation to have a soul, though I would note that there are plenty of soulful individuals who work and run them, including all of the floor employees at B&N, who have always struck me as pretty sharp. Happy reading.
Good article and I'd like to add a slightly different perspective as someone who buys from indie book shops almost exclusively. Why do I pay more? Because I love browsing real physical books to find one to buy, and I don't find "browsing" through Amazon to be enjoyable. And a second reason--my local shop nearly always has at least one book that I've not heard of on prominent display that I find interesting enough to buy, and usually enjoy. This probably sounds very old school but I trust the buyers at my local shop far more than I trust Amazon reviews. When I want to buy a book without a specific title in mind, I go to the local shop and in almost every case I walk out with one or more books that I didn't know about.
And fwiw "Troubled" is on my reading list and I just checked, it's on my local shop's shelves. So perhaps my shop includes a wider range of books than some other indies.
I am right of center politically, and while I find the prominence of woke titles in independent book stores irritating, I love the ambience. I pay more to peruse, pick up, and be amidst books. I love categories by shelf. As a group, people who work in bookstores are smart, enthusiastic about reading and are great conversationalists. I don’t give a fig about anyone’s politics.
In short, just as I pay more for food at restaurants I will happily pay more for books in bookstores.
Now if I learned that certain books at a particular bookstore were banned, that might be too bitter a pill to swallow. At the very least they would get an earful from me.
What interested me the most in this article is its focus on books only as physical objects. Not a word about e-books.
As a man of a certain age, I've spent a good deal of my life in bookstores of various sizes and in various communities, and built up a pretty substantial home library that still nourishes me in all its dusty, crumbling splendor. But after three moves among distant cities in California over the last 20 years, I've reduced the volume of my volumes while still having one room in my home that is "the library." I've always been proud of my shelves of books, but things change.
Today I'd say that about 80% of the books I buy are e-books for my Kindle app. It's much easier on my eyes, I can read for longer periods, I can highlight and take notes with abandon (an indulgence I didn't allow myself with physical books) and yet I get all the joy of reading while not worrying about the space and the dust.
I'm also one of those who doesn't much miss the community aspect of bookstores, so that puts me in a minority. I have many friends who are still romantic about bookstores and the pleasure of meeting other readers, and of holding a book in their hands. I am glad for them, and for the author. A friend of mine just published a new novel and we joked that I'd have to get a copy that he could actually sign for me, since I'm in the Acknowledgements. So I appreciate the downsides as well as the upsides.
On balance, e-books are better for me, and for lots of other people. And I can imagine a world where, like LPs and movies on laser discs, books will be read more electronically than on paper. I can see good things and bad things with that change, but I see the change happening, and think it's worth a word or two.
The ABA has a well-earned dismal reputation. Back in 2021, the ABA apologized for a ‘violent incident’ that it was responsible for. What exactly was the ‘violent incident’ that the ABA apologized for? Including a copy of ‘Irreversible Damage’ (by Abigail Shrier) in its monthly ‘white box’ distribution. That’s so crazy you can't make it up.
Perhaps the flaw is trying to search for spiritual or emotional satisfaction in commerce? I find satisfaction in reading; I view the search for good books as a necessary evil, facilitated by book reviews in journals and the NYT/WSJ along with Amazon-driven recommendations, which are shockingly accurate. I have never, in many years at many bookstores before the advent of Amazon, ever had a useful recommendation from a store owner or employee . And I certainly don't enjoy time idly talking about random titles with people I have never met. For somebody growing up in a small town with small retailers, Borders and B&N were blessings; so too were the large university-town bookstores. But the blessing was their number of titles and the probability that an elusive title was stocked. Amazon has blown all of that away, and for me, is truly all I need when it comes to reading. I don't need a corporation to have a soul, though I would note that there are plenty of soulful individuals who work and run them, including all of the floor employees at B&N, who have always struck me as pretty sharp. Happy reading.
Good article and I'd like to add a slightly different perspective as someone who buys from indie book shops almost exclusively. Why do I pay more? Because I love browsing real physical books to find one to buy, and I don't find "browsing" through Amazon to be enjoyable. And a second reason--my local shop nearly always has at least one book that I've not heard of on prominent display that I find interesting enough to buy, and usually enjoy. This probably sounds very old school but I trust the buyers at my local shop far more than I trust Amazon reviews. When I want to buy a book without a specific title in mind, I go to the local shop and in almost every case I walk out with one or more books that I didn't know about.
And fwiw "Troubled" is on my reading list and I just checked, it's on my local shop's shelves. So perhaps my shop includes a wider range of books than some other indies.
I am right of center politically, and while I find the prominence of woke titles in independent book stores irritating, I love the ambience. I pay more to peruse, pick up, and be amidst books. I love categories by shelf. As a group, people who work in bookstores are smart, enthusiastic about reading and are great conversationalists. I don’t give a fig about anyone’s politics.
In short, just as I pay more for food at restaurants I will happily pay more for books in bookstores.
Now if I learned that certain books at a particular bookstore were banned, that might be too bitter a pill to swallow. At the very least they would get an earful from me.
What interested me the most in this article is its focus on books only as physical objects. Not a word about e-books.
As a man of a certain age, I've spent a good deal of my life in bookstores of various sizes and in various communities, and built up a pretty substantial home library that still nourishes me in all its dusty, crumbling splendor. But after three moves among distant cities in California over the last 20 years, I've reduced the volume of my volumes while still having one room in my home that is "the library." I've always been proud of my shelves of books, but things change.
Today I'd say that about 80% of the books I buy are e-books for my Kindle app. It's much easier on my eyes, I can read for longer periods, I can highlight and take notes with abandon (an indulgence I didn't allow myself with physical books) and yet I get all the joy of reading while not worrying about the space and the dust.
I'm also one of those who doesn't much miss the community aspect of bookstores, so that puts me in a minority. I have many friends who are still romantic about bookstores and the pleasure of meeting other readers, and of holding a book in their hands. I am glad for them, and for the author. A friend of mine just published a new novel and we joked that I'd have to get a copy that he could actually sign for me, since I'm in the Acknowledgements. So I appreciate the downsides as well as the upsides.
On balance, e-books are better for me, and for lots of other people. And I can imagine a world where, like LPs and movies on laser discs, books will be read more electronically than on paper. I can see good things and bad things with that change, but I see the change happening, and think it's worth a word or two.