As a kind of follow-up to my unsettling experiences as chronicled in ‘No Books For You,’ I’ve bloggated an ode to the act of browsing for books in actual, physical, honest-to-goodness brink-and-mortar bookstores. You remember those — the places we used to get all our books back before the Jetsons became reality and robots started delivering books (that we don’t even remember ordering) to us in person, all without us ever having to leave our stim-couches or take the feely- domes off our heads.
But ‘Books Best Appreciated in Their Natural Habitat‘ also includes some shocking revelations about Your Humble Narrator. About my vile, venal, and voracious ebay habits that have nearly single-handedly ruined the publishing industry, the viability of book sellers nationwide, and the common man’s faith in humanity.
While I am attempting to reform this pernicious behavior (really), I have never stopped appreciating the irreplaceable experience real bookstores can provide.
Not to over-emphasize the aesthetics of the whole thing, but browsing a book store is like having a civilized meal in a restaurant while online browsing is like eating a big mac in your car stuck in five o’clock traffic. The first is a public and collaborative act, one in which all the senses are stimulated; the latter is private, distracted, and utilitarian. Both can achieve fullness, but only the first offers real enrichment.
Anyway, the whole thing boils down to us being doomed as a society and species if you don’t go out right this minute and buy something at a real damn bookstore.
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Live without that first smell of paper and ink when I walk into a book store…say it ain’t so.
They should bottle that scent like they do with ‘new car smell,’ I’d use it on my bookshelves. Or as aftershave.
Aftershave? Oh my god. That would drive me crazy.
Another one down.
I was out in the western part of my state yesterday and drove by a spot where there used to be a great used book store. ’s gone. I did a quick websearch this morning and found that they went online and closed the brick and mortar, they didn’t just change location (that was a long shot wish, anyway.)
I don’t know if I actually bought a Wagner Kane book there, but I know that was the first place Dark Crusade called to me from the shelf.
I do remember getting the Lancer edition of Conan the Freebooter there (with the graphic cover of the ape having its limb hacked off, later replaced by a scene from “A Witch Shall Be Born” by ACE.)
Good times.
I hate to see that — I think it’s great when an indie store can expand with web sales and generate some more income to stay afloat, but it’s a shame when they just decide to convert to online sales exclusively.
And, like you I have those same sorts of memories about discovering particular books or authors in certain places — but you’ll never hear someone saying that a book ‘called to them’ from somebody’s ebay storefront. There’s very little magic in the online world.