Posted on 06/22/2006 7:40:40 AM PDT by SmithL
The good thing about a good bookstore or library isn't finding the book you came in for, it's discovering the book you had to have that you didn't even know existed/you were looking for.
Such discoveries are made by hunting for them. You can go online, through publishers catalogs, or read reviews of books. But that doesn't cover everything published. And is still a hit and miss approach. And holding a book in your hands permits you to thumb through it.
I don't find much at the big barn bookstores (bookstop, barnes & noble, or borders) although 20 years ago Bookstop had books that no other store did (in the era of Walden and Barnes & Noble chains and independent stores).
Now most the chains all stock the same 50 titles in any section.
nicely put.
Well bootleggers took to printing copies of Shakespeare's plays for public consumption.
BUMP
What elitist whiners. Griping because their Commie books are for sale at Safeway. I guess Safeway shoppers aren't "cultured" enough to read their books with no pictures and big words.
Selling Commie books to jobless hippes in tax-city. Brilliant!!
then rushing to an independent bookstore to find they had three or four copies of it in hardback selling at full list price. I went home and order it online for less than half that. I kept checking the bookstore over the next few weeks. While it was always crowded and selling the kind of crap I mentioned above, it never seemed to have sold a copy of this fine novel. It's the culture, stupid!
Change your business model. I prefer reading a book I can hold. Why not offer a service that will print and bind a book on demand?
I think technology is advanced enough now that it is possible to print a complete book in a relatively short time and have it bound. The quaility of binding could depend on how much someone is willing to pay.
I agree, there is something about browsing a good book store and stumbling on a great book. Many of my favorite novels were "accidents" like that.
That can still happen at times in the big barn stores. For instance, my local Borders has quite a selection of military history and theological books. More than you would ever expect.
Bibliopath ping.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this ping list.
No, it's on the same shelf as the emetics, har har....
We could only hope!
Lots of good books are out of print while they keep publishing new crap.
Amazon's fault.
Do you want to give these bookstore operators heart attacks?
Get a bunch of friends together, and one by one go in to the store and ask if they have Ann Coulter's "Godless"
I think you meant, emetics...
Nonsense about e-books. Nobody's going to read an entire book on screen. There was a good article about this just a couple of days ago. People will not read more than a couple of screenfuls of text, studies show. I keep finding two page articles about the Cinci Bengals printed out of some Web page every week of the year in the men's stall at this hi tech outfit.
When someone says something that dumb, it is time to stop listening. Neal Sofman said that early in the article and William of Ockham was one of the first to start rolling over in his grave.
Hmmm, maybe that's a big reason for the bookstore closures. As an academic, and a generally all-round weird person, I have eclectic reading needs. I don't see any reason to pay full price for anything, including books. Much of what I want to add to my library is available used on Amazon. What I want to just read, but not keep, I get from my university library. Whle not everyone has access to a huge university library, almost anyone can buy used off of the net.
Actually, your paraphrase of his statement ruin a perfect short comment of his. He sum up the article nicely, but he added a cultural emphasis unique to FRish devotees in the mix with perfect timing.
His quote " First, it was Bush's fault, then it was Wal-Mart's fault. Now it's cultures fault?" is almost magically perfect. The article points out exactly how these dinosaurs blame everyone except their poor judgment of how peoples changes in shopping with capitalism advantages has made their shops almost obsolete. Added irony of how liberals blame everyone except themselves, makes Smith's statement even more delicious.
IMHO of course...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.