30 Days of Book Talk discussion

Sorry, for the long break. I was thinking what to ask next. :)

Oh nice one! I am blessed with three bookstores quite close to my home with all different assortments, and one having some nice second hand items as well, which I really like since their selection is always different than the now current bestsellers or buzzbooks.

In New York I loved visiting The Strand bookstore, also with a second hand department and just by being so huge

Sadly, there aren't a lot of new bookstores left here on the outskirts of the city, and it's so time consuming to drive or take the train downtown just to go to one of the independents there. It was better when we still had Borders competing with Barnes & Noble, but B&N seems to have gone downhill after their main competitor went under. I can't think of any remaining chains other than B&N.

Used bookstores are still in good shape. In Virginia, there are periodic used book sales in the libraries, and in Maryland the libraries own several used bookstores. The Wheaton Library in Maryland was an amusing case: the used book store was the basement of the library, with its own street-level entrance in the back on the building. When the library was short on funding, they would close on Sundays during the summer (Why?? Aren't there more visitors on Sunday?) and force the used book store to close as well. But the volunteers were in there sorting used books, and if you knocked on the door one of them would peek out and let you in. It was like a book speak-easy. They've since torn down that building and rebuilt it, and I haven't been there yet to see the new layout.

I can still visualize the layout of upwards of twenty used book stores, but don't know how many of those still exist. They were wonderful places where you could find book you'd never heard of (because they were out of print or just no longer stocked new) and the prices made it seem like a present. But used bookstores are more dangerous as I get older, and I have to keep checking to see if I already own a book before buying it.

The oddest layout I came across was a used book store in a converted parking garage. The floor wasn't quite level, and it spiraled slowly upwards. Still better than, say, Powell's in Portland with its hundreds of staircases.

There was a tiny bookstore in the basement of the Marlborough Apartment Bldg. in Kalamazoo, Michigan over 40 years ago. I bought lots of classics and hidden treasures there. The Marlborough was built in the early 20th Century and many well off elderly people who had lived there before WWII also frequented the bookshop, so interesting conversations were often to be had.

I’ve noticed that the quality of a bookshop or library always depends on the owners, or the custodians so to speak. Whether it’s a rare books shop, second hand bookshop, regular book shop or ….
Sadly none of them remain in our cities any more. All the most interesting people have emigrated or fled the country, or passed away, the bookshops have become new ugly buildings, and the one or two which are still bookshops are depressing shells of their former glorious selves.

Ten and more years ago we used to make forays down to the coast two or three times a year to buy second-hand books. The eighties and nineties were the golden years for that. Then sometime in the Uh-oh years, the old man who ran that bookshop retired or died and it was taken over by two little misses who only wanted to handle expensive books. Hardly surprising they soon closed. Then we switched allegiance to Julian's Library, but he too retired and closed. Now there is a second-hand-book chain store in my town called Reread, but they give you maybe 2 euros for a book they will sell on for 12-15 Euros, which by the way is the price of a new book. Also they won't take anything published before about 2010, which rules out most of the books that interest me.

I was one of those who said, "Oh no, ereaders will never replace paper books." I still love paper, but ebooks are cheaper and available online and I can find things I really am interested in thanks to free sites like Gutenberg. Also, I can make the font bigger unless the formatting was really terrible, which at my time of life is a blessing.

I still remember the time when the first and very small foreign language bookshop opened in my hometown some 25 years ago.
(Sadly, it doesn't exist any more.)
It was on a small street of the centre of town and to me it was like a magical place, like The Old Curiosity Shop. :)
They sold the "cheap" penguin paperback editions of classics and I just loved to stand there and peruse the bookshelves. That's where I bought quite a few of my first classics in English and some dictionaries.

I am attaching a pic of the place where the bookshop used to be.

That's the sort of street I love to walk down! Having a bookshop there would be wonderful.

Verry pretty!

My favorite bookshop specialized in the Penguin Classics, too.