Book Browsing

[oracne]

I am re-discovering the joy of browsing with the Kindle. When I buy new authors these days, it might be through browsing in a convention dealers' room, but more often it's because I read an interesting review. I don't browse as much as I did when I did more shopping in physical bookstores. True, I used to have more free time to browse, and I

Comments

[desperance]

There is also the case that physically browsing in bookshops is much less rewarding these days, because their range is so much reduced; between the bestsellers and the much-hyped newcomers there used to be a broad stretch of authors to be discovered, those with building reputations and the established midlist you'd just not got around to yet. Not any more.

[oracne]

That is a VERY good point. I found a lot of great books by authors who never sold much; I don't see those books any more.

[desperance]

'Zackly: neither those particular books (half my notion of "classic SF" is out of print, and likely to stay that way; granted that old editions can be found easily enough through Abe etc, but if people don't see 'em, how will they know to look?) nor the equivalent writers of today. Most of whom are being published through the small press/limited-edition market, which is a fine thing in itself but you have to be lucky to rise to popular attention that way.