Book and Bar
A week ago on a whim I was driving through Kingston and shockingly I saw that Ye Old Book Shoppe had reopened (it had been about fifteen years since I saw it open, always thought it strange that it still stuck around but was closed during that time). Store mostly looked the same, saw the woman who was likely the owner talking to a customer. Half the store was closed off but I looked through some of the sci-fi / fantasy section and even though nothing grabbed my attention to be polite I picked out a book.
Decided to buy the first Conan book (on a complete tangent I remembered someone I knew in College who said he didn’t read much fiction but absolutely loved the Conan books. I vaguely remember he was in an accident the night before graduation and heard was burned badly, though years later I remember seeing him on Facebook and he looked fine… and looked like he had married the girl he dated while at school).
So finally my turn to pay and I asked what had happened to the store. So the previous owner was her aunt and she’d been very sick the past decade or so and passed away recently. The new owner was in process of organizing and repricing the books. I was a bit miffed that she looked up online the price of books and came up with a price on the spot (more than what the book was previously marked at.
Decided I’ll give the place a bit of time to get its act together but I think she may find used book stores haven’t survived much these days because pricing is a difficult thing with them. Some books can be worth something but unfortunately a lot… it’s hard to find people to pay more than what a book originally sold for.
Now fast forward back to this weekend, today felt like a drive so went out to New Paltz. I had hoped to revisit a brewery I last visited a couple years ago on advice from a friend. Called the Gilded Otter, had a cut otter design on their glasses. Unfortunately they’ve been apparently acquired by different owners, another brewery called The Clemson Brothers, so the place although hasn’t changed much now has different bears and different glasses. Wish I had been able to go back sooner before the change.
Decided to buy the first Conan book (on a complete tangent I remembered someone I knew in College who said he didn’t read much fiction but absolutely loved the Conan books. I vaguely remember he was in an accident the night before graduation and heard was burned badly, though years later I remember seeing him on Facebook and he looked fine… and looked like he had married the girl he dated while at school).
So finally my turn to pay and I asked what had happened to the store. So the previous owner was her aunt and she’d been very sick the past decade or so and passed away recently. The new owner was in process of organizing and repricing the books. I was a bit miffed that she looked up online the price of books and came up with a price on the spot (more than what the book was previously marked at.
Decided I’ll give the place a bit of time to get its act together but I think she may find used book stores haven’t survived much these days because pricing is a difficult thing with them. Some books can be worth something but unfortunately a lot… it’s hard to find people to pay more than what a book originally sold for.
Now fast forward back to this weekend, today felt like a drive so went out to New Paltz. I had hoped to revisit a brewery I last visited a couple years ago on advice from a friend. Called the Gilded Otter, had a cut otter design on their glasses. Unfortunately they’ve been apparently acquired by different owners, another brewery called The Clemson Brothers, so the place although hasn’t changed much now has different bears and different glasses. Wish I had been able to go back sooner before the change.