Category Archives: books

There’s an inter­est­ing arti­cle in the New York Times about the effect of online book sales on small book­stores– espe­cially the effect of resales on authors and stores.

I admit that I have bought my fair share of new books from Ama­zon, or gone to a box store like Bor­ders or Barnes and Noble.  I don’t buy many used books, unlike my Dad, who loves Alib­ris almost as much as he loves his own kids, but I’m not an aca­d­e­mic, either, so I’m not chas­ing down obscure or out of print books most of the time.  And I have no doubt that this has had a real effect– I can see it in what ought to be the book mecca– Har­vard Square.  Now those won­der­ful days I spent as a kid and teenager mooching in the paper­back sci-fi & fan­tasy aisles at as many as three stores are gone.  The Har­vard Coop is run by B & N, and there’s one general-interest book­store (ONE, peo­ple) left in the square.  I try to buy there as often as pos­si­ble, but it really is over the river and through the woods for me, so it’s some­place I have to make a trip to get to.

But here’s the thing– and it’s some­thing the arti­cle doesn’t address.  They’re talk­ing about good, well-run small book­stores.  The ones who put care and deep thought into their selec­tions, and who pay atten­tion to inven­tory and what peo­ple come in ask­ing for.

Even liv­ing in Boston, I some­times have trou­ble find­ing a book that I need.  The only reli­able “small” book­stores, i.e., non-chains, are Book­smith and the New Eng­land Mobile Book Fair, aka King Tut’s Tomb.

Oth­er­wise?  Well, I live in a neigh­bor­hood in Boston that does have its own book­store– except it’s a spe­cialty book­store, and tends to carry mostly non­fic­tion and fic­tion works with an African-American or His­panic bent.  Which is fine for learn­ing new things, but when I need to find some­thing spe­cific that someone’s expressed a wish for, this isn’t the place to find it.

And the other nearby Book­store, which I desparately want to be able to shop at because it’s a sweet lit­tle store in a “down­town” where I can buy meat from a butcher, veg­gies and spices from the mid­dle east pro­duce ven­dor, cheese from a spe­cialty shop, nice tchotchkes from a nice lady in an airy, bright cor­ner store.  But the last three times I’ve gone in there, look­ing for non-obscure books, she hasn’t had any of them.

This last time I needed a book (and yes, shame on me for leav­ing Christ­mas shop­ping until the week before Christ­mas, but hey, crazy lady with a job, here) I delib­er­ately didn’t order two books from ama­zon on the the­ory that both had been well-reviewed and there­fore would be avail­able in an area book­store.  Boy.  I was wrong.   One of the books I wanted to give as a gift was a cooking/travel book that was on everyone’s best­seller lists a year ago, and came out in paper­back this sum­mer– it was well regarded in the lit­er­ary press, and was in the line of those Anthony Bour­dain books that sold like gang­busters.  Seemed safe to believe most sell­ers would carry it.

The other one, Dear Amer­i­can Air­lines, which is both fun­nier than David Sedaris and more poignant and heart­break­ing than Wally Lamb, has got­ten good reviews in major papers, and even ended up on some “best of the year” lists.  And yet, when I asked the pro­pri­et­ess if she had either, she gave me a look and said “never heard of them.”  She looked them up in her com­puter, and said, “Oh, no, I’ve never car­ried either of them.”  I found it hard to con­tain my sur­prise as to the lat­ter book, so I said “Really?  The Miles book had a very, very good review in the New York Times’ Sun­day Book Review.”

Okay.  Look.  I can under­stand that not every­one reads the Sun­day Book Review.  There are lots of bet­ter things to do with your time, really.  But if you’re a book­seller?  Espe­cially one on the East Coast?  Espe­cially one in Boston, where the books on the train are still an excel­lent sur­vey of real fic­tion and non­fic­tion?  Well, I hope you’ll agree that my flab­ber­gast­ed­ness (is that a word? I declare it so.) was rea­son­able when she answered me.

“Oh, I don’t read that.”

And that, right there, is the prob­lem with many smaller brick and mor­tar book­stores.  If I have time, I will go to the trou­ble of order­ing some­thing ahead of time to go pick up– or will plan ahead enough so I have time to go to mul­ti­ple indie stores in one day.  But if I go in need­ing some­thing in par­tic­u­lar, or I’m in the mood to just browse, and the seller’s one of those peo­ple who thinks it would be “fun” to own a book­store, well, you’re just not going to have what I’m look­ing for  or will be inter­ested in buy­ing if you’re only buy­ing off the rec­om­mended list from your dis­trib­u­tor, or what­ever Oprah’s fea­tur­ing this month.  I have encoun­tered this prob­lem more times than I can count.  Good books that get good reviews in major book review pub­li­ca­tions, and they don’t even have one copy– con­sis­tently, every time I go look­ing for a copy.  It makes me sad, because I really would love that square to have a book­store.  But how could I pos­si­bly keep patron­iz­ing a book­store whose pro­pri­etress is so clue­less?  It’s like bang­ing my head against a brick and mor­tar store.  I’ve walked out of there empty-handed too often, and me walk­ing empty-handed out of a book­store is like the sun not ris­ing every day.

Maybe I’m a book­snob.  But if you want me to patron­ize your store?  Please carry at least some of the seriously-reviewed books of the year.  And if I say something’s been well-reviewed in such-and-such pub­li­ca­tion, at least have the audac­ity to lie to me and say you’re fresh out.  Then take note– and go read it.  You might make me believe you did order the one or two copies your small store had room for, and I might actu­ally come back.  I know it takes time.  I know it takes effort and thought.  But if you’re seri­ous about books, and seri­ous about own­ing a book­stores (two dif­fer­ent things, I know), then please, please, do it.

Instead?  The BH had to buy the cook/travel book at the B & N in Har­vard Square, and the Dear Amer­can Air­lines at the Bor­ders down­town.  And a cute lit­tle store in a cute lit­tle neigh­bor­hood lost a customer.