bookstores make me sad

[llcoolvad]

Barnes & Noble makes me sad, now.

I mean, literally tearing-up-can't-spend-more-than-a-few-minutes-in-one sad. Barnes & Noble was never as cool as indie bookstores were; it couldn't be, it's a chain run by corporate types. But the one near me had a pretty good selection, decent staff, and catered to readers with comfy chairs and a willingness to let you sit in them all day if you wanted, so I spent a LOT of time and money hanging out there. I didn't mind when they added the Starbucks, and I wasn't even surprised when they added more stationery and gift things.

But now? The prime real estate smack in the front middle of each store is a giant mostly-empty Nook display area that looks like it belongs in Best Buy. They've also added huge aisles of games, toys, gift things, and other non-book-related items, and they've cut way back on stock depth to make room for all of it. It's almost like a specialty Target. I don't know why this upsets me so, when I am the problem. I love ebooks, I have no desire to buy dead-tree books any more, and I know my shopping habits are similar to many people's. To stay in business, they have to do something.

But I guess I miss the old days.

By the old days, I really mean my personal old days. My favorite day off used to involve a trip out for lunch, off to the bookstore, maybe a visit to a stationery store, a wander around a comics or CD shop, and then a movie. Almost none of those things fit into my life now, and I guess I miss them in the abstract. I still get CDs, but I limit them to a few trips a year. I buy books entirely in ebook form, so that's a surf around some review sites, a glance at the amazon best sellers, look up a few favorite authors and see what they've released, etc. I don't buy pens or paper journals anymore, so if I'm going to a stationery store it's to pick up something specific and it's usually just at Staples. Movies are frequently spoiled by the unpleasant moviegoing experience (other patrons, expensive tickets and snacks, inconvenient showtimes, whatever) so unless it's some spectacle movie I wait and watch it at home. And since I've been watching what I eat for the last 14 months or so, the restaurant-going has also been sorta spoiled for me.

I'm sure some of this sadness is specific to books, however. My entire life has revolved around books and reading. Libraries and bookstores used to be my favorite places on the planet. My social life in college revolved around our science fiction club/library. The excitement of going somewhere that is devoted to the thing you like the most, where you'll find new exciting things to interact with, and where other people who are just like you also congregate? Yeah. That. But I don't feel it any more. Bookstores feel...lesser. Like I'm visiting my childhood home, and it's smaller than I remember.

I guess this is really nostalgia for who I used to be. And maybe it's because I haven't fully developed into who I will be, and I feel like the who I currently am part is in limbo. I would like to find my new thing, the thing that will get me out of the house on the weekends. I just don't know what it is yet.

Comments

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

Rock climbing. Elizabeth Bear loves it. :)

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

I think I'd need to be a bit more fit before I try to scamper up a vertical!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to find more new things. Swedish has been great, but it's not enough. I really don't think I'd like rock climbing, though. I'm not Type A enough.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Me either. I need to at least find my Swedish, though!

[sarcasticah.livejournal.com]

I could teach you to knit!

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

I think we tried that once, a long long time ago. I was a little too...tense? Tightly wound? Something.. I recall a warped little thing with way too tight stitches. I decided right then and there it was a no go never will be!

[sarcasticah.livejournal.com]

That was my fault. I had you using terrible, terrible yarn. And, y'know, you have to work at it for more than three minutes, Miss Impatient. :-)

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Most people start by knitting way too tightly. Deliberately making it too loose works pretty well. Except there really is such a thing as too loose (everything keeps falling off the needles way more often than it needs to), but it's a lot easier to go more tightly than more loosely.

Yes, good yarn and in a contrasting color to the needles is good.

That said, I still don't find it relaxing like some people do. It's too much like my job--do a lot of excruciatingly boring stuff perfectly enough and then something good comes out! I mostly do patterns that are very plain and don't require much attention, and then I can do them in front of the TV (except for the casting on and the part where I'm getting used to it). I also make only small things. Hats.

[daniel c. parmenter (from livejournal.com)]

I hear you. You changed, but the world changed too. But you know, you could always go to Moody Street in Waltham, where there are two (!) indie book stores (including More Than Words, run by and for troubled teens!), a good comics shop and a great indie movie theater! Then you can go to Solea for tapas and since it's so expensive, there's no danger of eating too much!

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Ah, the old stuff may be there, but I'd still have to bring the new me along. There's no going back, my friend!

[rolandgsl.livejournal.com]

A couple of times a year, my workplace has a traveling bookseller set up in one end of the cafeteria. They almost always have everything except books...I don't even bother looking anymore.

The Borders near me always had a better selection, a hipper vibe, a more fun shopping experience...sort of the best parts of B&N and Newbury Comics rolled into one. And yet, for all their coolness, they still couldn't cope. How can a squarer store like B&N hope to make it?

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole thing is sad. The world moves on. I guess this is how buggy drivers probably felt once they started driving cabs. Like, man, I loved that horse, but damn, it's nice to go fast and not have to sit behind shit all the time.

I'm still trying to find a solution for how I select the next thing to read. I asked this question of the folks on AskMetafilter, but didn't get too many replies: "For most of my life I judged books by their covers. By that, I mean I'd go into my favorite local bookstores and browse through the sections that I was interested in. I could tell a lot about books from their covers, as I'm sure you all could, too. Did it have good design? Quality printing? A decent publisher? I could skim through the book and tell right off if I'd enjoy it. I still made bad decisions from time to time, but on the whole my decision-making was pretty quick and painless.

But now I read almost everything in ebook format or I listen on Audible, and I feel like I have to spend a lot more time researching books than I used to. If I find the book by browsing (rather than by reading a review or from a personal recommendation) I then have to go through what feels like a time-consuming process, searching amazon and goodreads and librarything for reviews (while trying to avoid spoilers!). And then I'm still just really getting reader reviews.

I guess that without the tactile feedback of a physical book, I feel like I need the critic's opinion. Not so much that I need someone to tell me what to think about the book, but more that I'd like some context: how is the book regarded in its genre or subgenre, does it sound interesting and people are reading it, but basically it ends up being a "Twilight" or "50 Shades of Grey" kind of thing? Basically I love genre fiction, and I'm getting too old to waste time and money on junk."

That's REALLY what I miss about bookstores. It goes back to the whole curation aspect, the thing I'm missing about terrestrial radio. With everything easily available, how do you efficiently make choices?!

It's a challenge!