thoughts on the news of the day: bookstores

hmmm…..

            So, I don’t have a Kindle, an iPad or a Knook; not yet anyway.    I read books the old fashioned way.  They are still paper for me, and they still collect dust on my bookshelf.  I predicted long ago that some day books would be collectors items because most information and reading material would be digital.   And my prediction is close to true.

            In Nashville, TN, a popular author, Ann Patchett and her business partner have opened a new bookstore.  They did this because Nashville no longer had a real bookstore that was not the specialty or religious type.  Can you imagine that in a city the size of Nashville there was not one bookstore?  There are used book stores and stores that reach into the suburbs, but no real bookstores in the city proper.

            This doesn’t mean that people don’t read anymore, although that claim has been raised.  It means that more and more people do their reading from downloaded material displayed on their electronic tablets.  That may be a good thing or not. It is convenient, that’s for sure – to download a book anytime day or night.  But the delight of browsing and discovery is lost sitting at a computer.  Not every book written is electronic, so there is at times, a need to buy a real book. 

            We do still have our own bookstore in the small Ozarks town I live in, but it succeeds by renting and selling videos as well as books.  I hope it will survive.  It still has its own coffee bar and comfy chairs to rest and relax in. 

            I, myself, continue to collect children’s books – I figure that some day they might be a novelty for my future grandkids and great grand kids and that maybe … maybe they just might read them.

            hmmm…..