I think maybe I'm old and jaded?
But my response to this article on used bookstores is 'huh?' and 'sweet summer child' and 'whut'.
What I Learned From Visiting Over 50 Used Bookstores In Six Months: They have a charm that can’t be matched by the large corporate chains
Well, duh, because large corporate chains have pretty much all the same books that came out within the last brief time span in their shiny covers. The clue is in the name 'used'.
I honestly wonder how 'rare' any trove he comes across is. Are used bookstores in this day and age really, really, 'passion projects' for the owners and is it entirely true 'they’re open repositories for those willing to discover and claim the unwanted'???
Okay, maybe these institutions are entirely, completely distinct from booksellers selling used books online and checking to see what various volumes are fetching on the marketpplace - maybe?
I am also old and cranky and I prefer my bookstores to eschew too much sweet disorder. I can see that perhaps this has an appeal for those used to tidy curated online spaces? (I am waiting for a column about the gritty hands-on appeal of doing research on microfilm, wot?)
Though I will concede that after a lifetime of book-collecting, I no longer haunt secondhand bookstores with the same avidity that I was once wont. I have a distressing number of books and am trying to cull my shelves. Over the years I have checked off a great number of the treasures I was hunting for (largely due to the internet), and works I would once have had to hope for the serendipity of a shelf in the backroom of the bookshop to find are now available as ebooks.
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