Big box bad
2005 07 24
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I've embarked on reading Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, which seems to
have some fairly interesting preamble about the political situation in
Rome, about Caesar, and about Gaul itself.
It's books like this 1 that make me love used bookstores. If I'd walked into some major market, antiseptic, come let me lure you with my economy, literary whorehouse like Chapters, I'd never see something like this sitting on the shelf. Nope. I'd walk in and find rows upon rows of Chicken Slop for the Soulless books, people drinking coffee in their oh so convenient beverage bar, and a conveniently placed rack of custom printed, overpriced canvas sacks into which I can stuff whatever version of a bestseller happens to be on hock that week.
There is no charm in the big box store. It offers little more than convenience, certainly no comfort to those of us who like our bookstores to feel like an extension of our bodies, and they certainly aren't helpful to small publishers, independent printers, self-publishers, or anyone who doesn't want to play their big box bingo bonanza.
I think that's at least a small part of the reason why I wanted the used bookstore business so badly, because I know damn well that there are others out there like myself; I know that big box is not always going to be the preferred mode of shopping for everyone; I have a feeling that one day big box is going to gasp and sputter out like a '62 Caddy on its last gas fume. I also have this feeling that someone could turn a little used bookstore business into the kind of place that could offer convenience, comfort, good book selection (new and used) without forcing patrons to self off limbs or firstborn children, and a haven from shopping that feels more like they've been stuffed into the generic lumps of mystery snacks in the bins at the bulk food barn.
There's got to be an equivalent to Luddite term for those of us who are just on this side of being sick to distraction of big box and shopping malls that seem to grow with the rapidity once reserved for chia pets.
1: This book, by the way, is just that much on the side of being older than I am. And I also picked up this tiny volume from the 1940s on existentialism.