This past week Harry had the entire cast for Richard II over to rehearse in our living room, all 18 of them, so I decided to make myself scarce because space was going to be at a premium that night.There was a book I had read about and wanted to buy, so I thought it would be the perfect evening to spend a little time in a nice bookstore. Barnes and Noble at Galleria in Edina is not exactly the quintessential old-world-type London bookstore such as Flourish and Blotts from the Harry Potter series, but it is nice. I do not frequent bookstores much anymore, being the Kindle gal that I have become over the last few years.
Upon entering the bookstore, I was shocked and rather saddened to find that my old haunt had taken out what were once large areas of bookcases filled with books and replaced them with shelves of games, puzzles, greeting cards, stationery and gifts of all sorts. I looked around and thought, what happened to all the books? Did their market research tell them to get rid of the books? Are people today really sitting around playing board games and putting puzzles together? I thought most people today are playing Angry Birds alone not Monopoly with a group of their friends and family. Don't most of us spend a lot of time looking at screens of some sort or another? Our hands are on a keyboard or a touch screen when we want to relax, they are not picking up puzzle pieces. We communicate with our friends and family via Facebook in cyberspace, not in real space. We now use our phones to text our friends or family, we don't call and talk to them. Maybe the market researchers have learned that when people do spend time together they will have to be playing games and putting together puzzles because the art of conversation is a lost art.
I did find the book I was looking for: Cleopatra: A Life, by Pulitzer-prize-winning author Stacy Schiff. The book has photographs and maps that would not be fully appreciated on my black-and-white Kindle screen. Lately, and rather strangely, I have found myself in the mood to read a "real book." I have spent many an hour wandering around in this Barnes and Noble bookstore over the years, looking at books, drinking cups of coffee with friends at the on-site Starbucks, listening to author talks and buying books. Barnes and Noble always had the book I was looking for, or they would order it for me. I found new books I didn't know existed just by wandering around, and they had a great selection of teacher materials. They gave a nice teacher discount too.
I know, I know: you can't have your great bookstore and a Kindle too; but walking about the newly configured bookstore the other evening, I missed my bookstore of old. I love downloading a book in 30 seconds on my Kindle while sitting in my comfy chair at home, or having the day's New York Times to read instantly during a sub's slow work day (lots of teacher prep time and nothing to prepare for). There's also the fact that I can carry my Kindle with me anywhere and read from a wide selection of books, magazines and newspapers. I can even read without my reading glasses because I can just pump up the print size on the screen, and love to surf the virtual bookstore, Amazon.com, when- and where-ever; but I still want the world to have bookstores you have to walk into on two feet.
I was one of the first in line to buy a Kindle years ago, and have actually had two Kindles. My first one drowned, victim of a rogue wave that hit me as I sat reading on a beach in Los Cabos. My only complaint with the Kindle has been the size of the screen. I have long thought that the keyboard at the bottom of the device should be eliminated and that it should have touch screen color technology. The Nook, made by Barnes and Noble, debuted after the Kindle with a color touch screen. The Nook was more expensive and heavier than the Kindle so I stuck with the Kindle.
Well, now it looks like perfection, from my point of view at least, has landed -- or I should say ignited? The Kindle Fire. The keyboard has been eliminated on this soon-to-be-released Kindle model, and the screen is a touch screen and in color. I like the relatively small size of the Kindle Fire: 7.5 " x 4.7 " 14.6 ounces, and the price: $199 (with free shipping, of course, from Amazon), You can also surf the web on the Kindle Fire and download movies and television shows as well. The Fire and other new but less fancy Kindle models will be released in November, just in time for Christmas.
I guess one should not find all that surprising the changes with regard to books, given the history of the written word. From scratching in the dirt with sticks to writing on cave walls, to parchment scroll writing, to monks hand copying bound books, to the invention of the printing press, communication with writing is what people have always done and will continue to do: only the technology changes. The lightening fast development of e-book technology has been astonishing. Books as we have known them for hundreds of years have suddenly changed form. I am glad to have lived long enough to experience this amazing change, but the reality is that these changes may mean the demise of bookstores as we have known them. Broders Books, the other large national chain of bookstores, recently went into bankruptcy. Barnes and Noble is struggling mightily to survive by reinventing itself with a wider range of merchandise.
Today my daughter and I went to Wild Rumpus, the wonderful little bookstore in Linden Hills which opened nearly two decades ago. It is sort of the Flourish and Blotts of children's books, situated in an old building on a charming city street in my old Minneapolis neighborhood of Linden Hills. Wild Rumbus is stuffed -- no crammed -- full of books, and it seems to be flourishing while selling only books. Alexis bought books for a friend with two young children, and I found a wonderful picture book for my granddaughters called Sisters. This bookstore may be strictly books, but it does have two chickens, three cats and a rabbit running about, and reptiles in cages. There are cozy chairs for old folks to sit, floor space with pillows for kids to lie down and curl up with a book, and kind people to help you find books. So, I guess for a time anyway, I can have my Kindle and ... an old fashioned bookstore too. As Jerry Seinfield said, "A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence that people are still thinking."
Sort of having your cake and eating it too.
ReplyDeleteyes, it is what I have traditionally done best in life!
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