Saturday, December 17, 2011

Little interesting book stores

When I was a kid there were many little and interesting book stores. They were run by intellectuals who loved books. I remember one that was in an old Victorian house. Its philosophy collection was in an attic room with sloping walls. I remember another bookstore that had cats.Another bookstore was in a strip center, but had interesting rooms: some long and skinny, others square and packed with homemade looking shelves--perfect for hide and seek. I remember one in an upstairs room over a restaurant--a converted apartment with creaky floors and a maze of small rooms stuffed with books. I remember that most had coffee too and sometimes cookies-- and unlike with B&N or Borders, they were complimentary. But then the big stores came and customers preferred the big and bland to the small and unique. With the little stores, shopping was like finding unknown gems. You bought what they had, not necessarily what you wanted. We loved the big stores with their "big" selection. But they have now learned there is always a bigger fish and now the big box store is being swallowed up by the biggest eFish of all--Amazon. With Amazon, you can search for books you really want and you can most likely find it, even if it is out of print or just very obscure. And many times, you can read a few pages and read some reviews. It is really a nice system--better in many ways that what it replaces. And, many of the used books come from other resellers, ones that I like to imagine are little quirky used books stores that are in old Victorian homes and have cats and stock their philosophy books in rooms with crooked walls.