The pickup day is Thursday in my neighborhood. I talked about my class and getting them started with thinking like learners. Those two aren’t related except there seemed to be a lot of trash trucks out this morning. 🙂
Yesterday’s Word Count: 0
Yesterday’s Treadmill: 0 miles
Today’s Starting Count: 0
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To me, the biggest problem of no handy bookstores, is not being able to find what I called my “little gems.” I do pretty much what you described to find my books. I have my kindle. However, over the years, when I lived in bigger areas, I have walked into bookstores to browse and found books that were just as described above, but completely invisible to my eyes online. EX LIBRIS by Anne Fadiman, USED AND RARE by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, and another little gem about learning to restore old and rare books by, uh, I forget, but turned out to be the most fascinating eulogy about a person (the teacher) I have ever read. I love todays ways and would not go back, but I am also afraid some of these books will not see the light of day because folks won’t know where or how to look for them. I guess it is a matter of gain some and lose some. But it is still a cr__shoot, as most of the gems were picked up and a paragraph or two were read and I walked off with the book. I re-read these often and they always strike a core with me. I miss finding them. I will have to browse smarter, I guess.
I, too, have fond memories of nosing around in bookstores. The search for a book in a real shop is much more leisurely and certainly more of treat for the senses: the competing colors, the various sizes and layouts, full color photos (no batteries required), and the tactile feel of the differing typefonts and paper textures along with the delicious smells of ink and paper. Oh, and did I forget to mention that one has the freedom to look through the entire book before buying as opposed to just the front cover, table of contents and possibly the first chapter (or is it only five pages in some cases)? As memline has put it so well, the happy serendipity of suddenly finding some little treasure at the end of a shelf in an out of the way corner is a delight that the sterility of the online experience cannot equal. Online is faster and more efficient when you know exactly what you want, and I will admit that most everything that is current in ‘print’ can be found at hand. But, if one has the the luxury of time and the hope of stumbling upon a neglected gem or an out-of-print forgotten something that only you as a special reader could love… well, give me the brick and morter bookstore any day.
I was never comfortable in book stores. The shops always smelled heavily of coffee (which I’m not fond of), there were always those awkward moments where another customer had to share the same space in in an aisle, the selection in my preferred genres always seemed weak, and most importantly the only thing around was big press. 90% or more of what I read now is self-pub or small press.
Being able to browse from home is awesome.
For me, it was always the used bookstore that I found most fruitful. The barely read copy of the latest Tom Clancy, or the copy in great shape of a John Campbell novel with a cover price of 49 cents, or the Ace Double.
Often on shelves of fairly raw wood, packed in together where-ever they would fit without causing serious damage.
Of course, as far the Big Publishers were concerned, that made me a pirate, as I wasn’t paying *THEM* their fair share. They had to live with the Doctrine of First Sale – they sure as heck didn’t like it!