Anyone Else Bummed Bookstores Are Dying Out?

[Deleted]

We still have a Barnes and Noble here, I love just browsing countless books. It sucks for bookstores though, because I would imagine that most everyone uses them to preview books before buying them from Amazon.

[wildojinx]

I've noticed that graphic novel sections in bookstores are dying out too. Our local bookstore has only one section devoted to GNs, and theyre all either the most famous superheroes (forget about getting any second-tier heroes or non marvel/dc superhero titles) or licensed titles (including all of the walking dead and adventure time collections, and yes, i know walking dead was a comic before it was a tv show, but i dount theyd have all of the books if not for the popularity of the show). A far cry from when graphic novel sections were huge and even had older titles.

[h]

Stores that sell new books? Not particularly. The selection was always inferior to a decent used bookstore. I won't miss conversations like this one:

Customer: I'm looking for a novel by John Steinbeck.

Employee: We have 16 copies of East of Eden.

Customer: I'm looking for a different one. It's called...

Employee: East of Eden is trendier. We have it. 16 copies.

Customer: That's not what I want. I was wondering if you have...

Employee: Oprah likes East of Eden.

Customer: I've actually got a copy already. Do you have...

Employee: East of Eden!

Customer: Why did you just yell that?

Employee: You can choose any of the 16 identical copies.

Customer: Is there anyone else I can talk to?

Employee: What do you have against Oprah?

Customer: This conversation is painful. Please don't breed.

Employee: We have East of Eden from other publishers on our website.

Customer: Leave me alone. I'm trying to leave the store.

Employee: Buy our loyalty card on your way out!

Customer: Shut up.

[Deleted]

Dec 18, 2013 22:27:04 GMT -5 kidglov3s said:

Dec 18, 2013 22:23:30 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

My area's local Barnes & Noble stores are all surviving. They've done so by appealing to multiple niche groups at once (the aforementioned elderly and manga groups, as well as children, and so forth) and don't seem to be doing badly at all.

I think the biggest problem affecting bookstores is their lack of scholarly research material. Those are the only books I spend hardly any time with anymore, and the only books most university students and scholars are going to be touching. And bookstores--small ones, in particular--don't carry that stuff. If they offered those in rental format, similar to libraries (the public variants don't have much scholarly stuff either) that could possibly bring in some money.

Now there's a sore spot for me.

One of the things I like to do if I have to pass time in Ann Arbor is go to the Graduate library and look through the different film books in the stacks, namely their collection of journals like Film Comment and Films in Review. This past Summer I went there only to find that all of the older volumes of these were taken off the shelves and only available on microfilm. SO LAME! I'm happy it wasn't like that when I was there as a student. It was so cool to be able to just pull a book off the shelf.

I think that's an untapped market. Like, how expensive is it to get this old archival material? It doesn't have to be carried all the time, but a major enterprise getting involved in something like this could put the universities on notice. That's where the real future of texts comes from, I believe. Those irreplaceable sources that have legitimate information people can actually use as opposed to random fiction books and "casual" reading that people pick up via kindles and the like.

[Piccolo]

Dec 18, 2013 21:46:53 GMT -5 Glitch said:

I miss going through all those weird mags that weren't usually available at a super market's magazine section.

This. If my B&N ever dies, I guess I'll have to suck it up and subscribe to my trail running magazine, considering it's way too niche to be carried anywhere else. (I guess it'd be cheaper to do that in the first place, but I dunno, I don't buy it every month, so...)

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

My area still has a B&N.

As much as I like my Nook, sometimes I want a hard copy of a book. And in some cases, such as Hyrule Historia, owning a digital copy over the physical copy is down right sacrilegious to me.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Dec 18, 2013 22:29:10 GMT -5 Spider2024 said:

Dec 18, 2013 21:43:11 GMT -5 KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! said:

I just went to a huge mall in my area (three floors!) and there was not a single bookstore there. Not just that, but not even the anchor stores had any good book sections. I was planning to buy a wrestling book or two as I was really looking for some light reading, but the closest thing there was to a bookstore was Newbury Comics. Despite the name this Newbury Comics hid their comics in a little section of the store on the second floor, the top floor being mostly taken up by clothing (as if their weren't enough clothing stores!). Luckily the store also had ONE shelf of non-comic books and not surprisingly there were no wrestling books at all. Well, actually in addition to that ONE shelf they also had a few other books lying around here and there, but they were mostly silly picture books like People of Walmart and things of that sort.

Luckily there were some quality books on the ONE shelf in Newbury Comics and I ended up buying Basketball Diaries for $7. Not exactly what I was looking for considering I was aiming for light reading. Oh well, at least maybe the scene where the narrator gets blown for drug money could be darkly comical.

Of course, I could always go online (which I'll now do), but I was going to the mall anyway since I needed a new jacket and some gloves and was really hoping I could pick up a wrestling book or two. I mean I didn't even go into it with a picky mindset. Towards the end I was even thinking I would have settled for Chyna's book.

Oh well, I guess like video stores, bookstores are just going to die off. Like I said there is always online, but doesn't anyone else miss the days of lounging at the bookstore? Eating snacks you bought elsewhere and flipping through books you're never going to buy for hours while the employees give you the stink eye. Wait...I'm the reason they're dying off aren't I?

Out of curiosity, which mall was this? (I'm from the Boston area too, that's why I'm curious.)

Incidentally, I went to the Burlington Mall the other week, and we were bummed that there was no place in the mall to buy music. Luckily there was a Newbury Comics down the road. There was also (to bring this back to the original subject) a Barnes & Noble.

Bookstores are fun to spend time and browse in. There really is something for everyone in a good bookstore.

It was the South Shore Plaza. I know there is also a Barnes and Noble in the area as well, which no doubt at least in part if not in full accounts for the lack of bookstores in that mall, but I remember there was a time where big bookstores could live in harmony with little bookstores. At any rate the Barnes and Noble was too far to walk to from the mall (especially with this weather and my crappy shoes!)and I didn't want to spend another hour or two taking a bus there and back. Honestly, not that surprised the mall was completely sans bookstores (I checked ahead, but some of those retail stores have names that could be anything so I had some hope), but still disappointed.

[mizerable]

Not really.

I think most people are doing the smart thing by buying online, where you can get discounts or used books.

Honestly, books shouldn't cost $30 to $60...especially if it's a book you'll likely not reread.

[wildojinx]

Glad to see the love for used bookstores as well. I love sci-fi/fantasy and action-adventure novels and the used bookstores are great to get the lesser-known and out of print books in those genres.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Not really. I'm pretty cool with the iBook store. I have a shit ton of books taking up a lot of space. Now I have something the size of large thin brick to contain all that? Yeah, bookstores are cool and all, but, it's not like reading material is going extinct.