Burning the Page by Jason Merkoski

Author:Jason Merkoski [Merkoski, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781402288838
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2013-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Bookmark: Bookstores

There’s a used bookstore in Seattle, right in Amazon’s shadow, called Couth Buzzard Books. When I talk to the owner, he says he isn’t worried about electronic books. “I used to be a teacher,” he says, “so as long as children are reading, it’s all good.” He just wants to ensure that people are reading, which I agree is important. That said, he’s going to retire in a few years, so is he worried about the future of print books? He shrugs his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter too much.”

Maybe he’s wiser than I am, but I think print books still matter. A lot.

Though I worked at Kindle for five years, though I own almost every e-reader known to man, though I pioneered the writing of ebooks more than ten years ago, and though I still love my Kindle, ironically I do have problems with digital books.

When I was a student at MIT, I used to love going to the Avenue Victor Hugo Book Shop in Boston. It had cavernous rooms and creaky wooden floorboards and handwritten signs in the aisles directing you to some great reads. Like most independent bookstores, it’s shuttered now. In fact, most were shuttered in the 1990s with the advent of mass-market retail concerns like Borders and Barnes & Noble. Consumers got cheaper books and a wider selection of popular books, but they lost access to the more interesting obscure books. They also lost the feeling of connectedness, of being able to talk to patrons and storekeepers who also loved books.

I think this loss sets us back, because sometimes the most interesting books are the ones that are hardest to find. They’re the books that Amazon never recommends to me and that even newer sites like Goodreads never get around to mentioning. Sometimes, to find a good book to read, you need to first find a kindred spirit—and that was often the special role filled by people who worked or shopped in independent bookstores.

Some retailers, like Barnes & Noble, still have chairs set aside in their stores where customers can read and socialize. There are sometimes Tarot card readings, and if you bring your Nook into the store, you can get often get free desserts or coffee from the pastry bar. Fortunately, there are still great spaces where a community can come together around books.

Reading is like an act of bathyspheric descent into the depths of an inky-black ocean. You’re alone as you descend into the dark, as you discover strange creatures. On surfacing, it can be a great feeling to share the excitement, to discuss with others all the luminous eels and unexpected fish you discovered in the depths. (And in the best books, you find these unexpected delights inside yourself, not on any page. The best books tell you what you already suspected about yourself but were perhaps too afraid to scrutinize.) Talking about what you’ve read is a great feeling, whether it’s about a fiction book whose characters interest you or a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.