Friday, April 15, 2011

K Is For...

"Killing A Classic"

A moment of silence please for the impending death of...

Books.

This post won't come as a surprise to any of you. Bookstores are slowly becoming a thing of the past -- and as much as the boyfriend might argue it, Amazon is NOT a bookstore, I'm sorry. Borders is going under and that makes me especially teary-eyed because it originated in my hometown of Ace Deuce. My fave location in NYC just shut its doors -- I went there for the last couple of days of their closing sale and it looked like a pack of rabid hyenas had stormed the doors and raveged hell on the remaining merchandise. Nary novel of my liking was to be found! And I have a wide range of tastes, you guys. Philippa Gregory to Nalini Singh to (my all time favorite) Jacqueline Carey.

(As a side note, I value any and all readers, but people who claim to like "Ulysses" I think are full of it. That book is five million pages long with run on sentences the likes of which I have never seen. Please. You're reading it to be able to say you read it. That's fine, just own up to it.)

But I don't care if you read romance, or history, or biographies, or fantasy, or sci fi, or self-help. All people who read get a giant two enthusiastic thumbs up from me. This is probably the product of growing up with two librarian parents.

Interlude for the Medieval Helpdesk...



Freaking love that video. Anyway, books of course are being replaced by Kindles and Nooks and the like, and I'm just not into it. I don't think I will ever get one of those no matter what. I need the feel of the pages in my hands and the smell of the books, and the spines to display on my beyond overflowing huge bookcase (one of the 3 pieces of furniture in my apartment).

I love books. I just do. Books as in the papery-kind. I stick my nose in the middle of new books and inhale. I love walking the aisles of the bookstores wondering what I will find next -- and that is one thing that is limited by online purchasing. You just don't get the same browsing experience. I love pulling a book down off the shelf and reading the first few pages to get a feel for it. (I never read the back because I don't want a single iota spoiled).

Do I think bookstores will completely disappear? To be honest, no, I don't. I think they will become almost extinct in the years to come but I also think there will always be people who value books -- and their children, and their children's children -- who will preserve the remaining teeny tiny bookstores as "novelty" stores. But the Barnes & Nobels and Borders of the world with their coffee shops? Yeah, I do think those will be no more.

Libraries I hope stick around but I think they will become nothing more than buildings of computers with cyber-librarians. I believe there is already one of these in existance. Books and real-live librarians may remain but I wouldn't count on it. Libraries will be used more to give people access to computers that wouldn't have it otherwise. And to give homeless people a place to bathe. Oh, the stories my mother could tell you...

When I was about 14 I wrote a story about a woman who gave her granddaughter a gift of a book and her granddaughter was confused because she had never seen one before. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I do think it will come damn close. I leave with a video my mother sent to me this morning which prompted this post. Both amusing and depressing.

It's A Book...

http://www.wimp.com/abook/

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Borders isn't really going under. Just closing some stores. So Ann Arbor is going from having 3 Borders to just 2 -- because really, how many big-box bookstores dose a town of 120,000 people need?

Liz said...

I still think it's only a matter of time...

Karen Jones Gowen said...

I am incredibly saddened by Borders closing. Barnes and Noble could have gone 5 years ago, but Borders was special. I love how they always supported the local authors, just like a local bookstore would. They acted more like an indie bookstore than a chain. My favorite closed as well.

Nofretiri said...

*hmm* I couldn't say, that there's a similar trend here in Germany. Every time I spend some good quality time in my favorite bookstore, it's well frequented - also the included cafe. Well, maybe bookstores have to develope, too, but I simply can't imagine, that they disappear completely ... or at least I hope so!

Karin @ Nofretiris Dream Of Writing

Deniz Bevan said...

Ha ha! That's about 95% why I read Ulysses. The other 5% was because I really like everything else Joyce ever wrote (except for Finnegan's Wake which I might like, if I ever get around to reading it...).
I do hope books never disappear, I love them too much.
Can never get enough of that medieval help desk video [s]