5 ms·

> no obvious signs of corporate guilt at having driven countless independent bookstores to oblivion I spent decades browsing bookstores with their paltry inve

> no obvious signs of corporate guilt at having driven countless independent bookstores to oblivion I spent decades browsing bookstores with their paltry inventory of bestsellers, occasionally resorting to ordering a book through them. I like Amazon a lot better (and the prices are far better, too). I buy a ton of books from Amazon. I don't miss the bookstores.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Mark222 9y ago
I never understood why people were mourning bookstores while libraries seem such a better thing anyway.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  My problem with public libraries was always the miserable scifi section. I never understood that. Even the littlest bookstores had a bigger scifi section than the library. B+N had racks and racks of scifi.
- dagw 9y ago
  Libraries and librarians tend to be more generalists, while niche bookstores and their employers are more focused. If I walk into a bookstore specializing in X then I can be pretty sure that the person working there knows a lot about the subtle differences in all the books about X. The same isn't necessarily true about libraries.
- matwood 9y ago
  Libraries could be much better if they stop focusing on the NYT best sellers list. They are starting to come around on indie books (and local community engagement), but it takes time. And, given how a libraries content budget works, a successful library book can suck out all of the budget. This is especially true if it is a book from a big 5 publisher with a high price tag.
- criddell 9y ago
  I don't read a lot of stuff, so Amazon makes a lot more sense. I'm just outside of the city limits, so a library card would cost me $130 / year. I don't spend much more than that on books plus Amazon ships it to me, so it's less expensive in the end.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    In middle and high school, I lived just outside the curiously squiggly border of the nearest library, and they didn't offer a card at any price. I don't think I'm alone in that. Amazon would have been amazing.
- mtreis86 9y ago
  I don't rent books. If they are good enough to read once I want to own the book and be able to refer back to it occasionally. The three books I am deeply into right now are all a thousand pages and I have been reading two of them for around four months now, and just started the third. Libraries tend to get annoyed when you keep a book for over six months. That said, I rarely visited used book stores anyways because they usually don't have the books I am looking for. I mourn the decrease in readers in general. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-fewer-americans-are-reading-print-books-new-survey-finds/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-few...
- Eridrus 9y ago
  In my experience the books I wanted to read we're often already on loan to someone and I would have to wait for them to be returned or for them to get the book from another branch. It was particularly bad with series. I was pretty excited by the fact that I could buy my own books when I got my first job. I still miss Borders.
  - jloughry 9y ago
    Borders was amazing: they even carried conference proceedings. Never seen that anywhere else.
madarcho 9y ago
When we talk about missing the bookstores, it's more about missing the librarians running them, at least in my opinion. They'd stock the shelves with the discoveries they had made over their life and be able to give very opinionated advice over various books. Talking to them to find your next coup de coeur is better in my mind than browsing the recommended section on Amazon.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  I find the reviews on Amazon to be far more helpful. Besides, just today I was reading HN and saw a reference to a book. I popped over to Amazon and bought a copy. I never would have heard of the book by any bookstore proprietor (and it was published in the days before those bookstores vanished). Amazon has hardly eliminated serendipity.
  - bamboozled 9y ago
    Everyone reading only the perceived best will have a strange affect on society over time. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” -- Haruki Murakami
    - mseebach 9y ago
      There's no way Amazon isn't going to make that particular situation better, not worse. The vast majority of the bookstores of yore stocked a few hundred, perhaps a few thousand, titles, and those were necessarily the ones "everyone" was reading. Today everyone (not just those near a well-stocked bookstore with a good librarian) can browse and order from literally millions of titles. The (relatively few) people who used to have a well stocked bookstore with a good librarian nearby are probably a bit worse off under Amazon. Everyone else is a lot better off.
    - mc32 9y ago
      I'd would disagree with that quip. Not everyone interprets things the same way. Two examples, religious texts and the corpus of laws.
chrisseaton 9y ago
I also don't really see how independent is a useful thing in a book shop anyway. It's exactly the same books. The literature isn't any better quality. Independent or corporate, they're all just retail middlemen and neither can add anything except being efficient at selling me the book. Second hand bookshops are a different matter though.
- csa 9y ago
  Pre-internet, independent bookstores excelled at curation and quality recommendations. They provided better access than chain stores, and they often helped the customer avoid weak selections. Some chain bookstores certainly had a few good staff members, but the selection and consistent quality of the staff was lacking. I will also humbly suggest that independent bookstores were great places to find likeminded people back when being a geek/nerd wasn't trendy. Anyway, the internet has solved a lot of the recommendation and curation problems of the past, so the independent bookstores have had to struggle to find a way to add value such that people actually shop there. It's possible, but much tougher than the past, imho.
- dilemma 9y ago
  Independent bookstores have different selections as they are often targeted at some niche whereas a chain focuses on bestsellers and proven authors. Still, Amazon has increased my reading by several thousand percent, because the books I read now I wouldn't know about without Amazon nor would I be able to purchase them.
- matwood 9y ago
  > I also don't really see how independent is a useful thing in a book shop anyway. What if you never see great book on the shelf because it's an indie book and not published by one of the big 5? That's really where an independent bookshop comes into play. In this way Amazon operates closer to an independent because it pushes indie books as well.
strictnein 9y ago
I miss bookstores, but it's mostly sentimental. Back in the early 90s I used to love to peruse the tech section of our local Borders (a former competitor to Barnes & Noble, in the huge bookstore category). It was the only place I could go to easily be exposed to technologies and products that I had never heard of. Also great where the game development books that would have a CD just full of the weirdest and craziest games that they got from who knows where.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Mark222 9y ago

I never understood why people were mourning bookstores while libraries seem such a better thing anyway.

skookumchuck 9y ago
My problem with public libraries was always the miserable scifi section. I never understood that. Even the littlest bookstores had a bigger scifi section than the library. B+N had racks and racks of scifi.
dagw 9y ago
Libraries and librarians tend to be more generalists, while niche bookstores and their employers are more focused. If I walk into a bookstore specializing in X then I can be pretty sure that the person working there knows a lot about the subtle differences in all the books about X. The same isn't necessarily true about libraries.
matwood 9y ago
Libraries could be much better if they stop focusing on the NYT best sellers list. They are starting to come around on indie books (and local community engagement), but it takes time. And, given how a libraries content budget works, a successful library book can suck out all of the budget. This is especially true if it is a book from a big 5 publisher with a high price tag.
criddell 9y ago
I don't read a lot of stuff, so Amazon makes a lot more sense. I'm just outside of the city limits, so a library card would cost me $130 / year. I don't spend much more than that on books plus Amazon ships it to me, so it's less expensive in the end.
- protomyth 9y ago
  In middle and high school, I lived just outside the curiously squiggly border of the nearest library, and they didn't offer a card at any price. I don't think I'm alone in that. Amazon would have been amazing.
mtreis86 9y ago
I don't rent books. If they are good enough to read once I want to own the book and be able to refer back to it occasionally. The three books I am deeply into right now are all a thousand pages and I have been reading two of them for around four months now, and just started the third. Libraries tend to get annoyed when you keep a book for over six months. That said, I rarely visited used book stores anyways because they usually don't have the books I am looking for. I mourn the decrease in readers in general. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-fewer-americans-are-reading-print-books-new-survey-finds/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-few...
Eridrus 9y ago
In my experience the books I wanted to read we're often already on loan to someone and I would have to wait for them to be returned or for them to get the book from another branch. It was particularly bad with series. I was pretty excited by the fact that I could buy my own books when I got my first job. I still miss Borders.
- jloughry 9y ago
  Borders was amazing: they even carried conference proceedings. Never seen that anywhere else.

madarcho 9y ago

When we talk about missing the bookstores, it's more about missing the librarians running them, at least in my opinion. They'd stock the shelves with the discoveries they had made over their life and be able to give very opinionated advice over various books. Talking to them to find your next coup de coeur is better in my mind than browsing the recommended section on Amazon.

skookumchuck 9y ago
I find the reviews on Amazon to be far more helpful. Besides, just today I was reading HN and saw a reference to a book. I popped over to Amazon and bought a copy. I never would have heard of the book by any bookstore proprietor (and it was published in the days before those bookstores vanished). Amazon has hardly eliminated serendipity.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  Everyone reading only the perceived best will have a strange affect on society over time. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” -- Haruki Murakami
  - mseebach 9y ago
    There's no way Amazon isn't going to make that particular situation better, not worse. The vast majority of the bookstores of yore stocked a few hundred, perhaps a few thousand, titles, and those were necessarily the ones "everyone" was reading. Today everyone (not just those near a well-stocked bookstore with a good librarian) can browse and order from literally millions of titles. The (relatively few) people who used to have a well stocked bookstore with a good librarian nearby are probably a bit worse off under Amazon. Everyone else is a lot better off.
  - mc32 9y ago
    I'd would disagree with that quip. Not everyone interprets things the same way. Two examples, religious texts and the corpus of laws.

chrisseaton 9y ago

I also don't really see how independent is a useful thing in a book shop anyway. It's exactly the same books. The literature isn't any better quality. Independent or corporate, they're all just retail middlemen and neither can add anything except being efficient at selling me the book. Second hand bookshops are a different matter though.

csa 9y ago
Pre-internet, independent bookstores excelled at curation and quality recommendations. They provided better access than chain stores, and they often helped the customer avoid weak selections. Some chain bookstores certainly had a few good staff members, but the selection and consistent quality of the staff was lacking. I will also humbly suggest that independent bookstores were great places to find likeminded people back when being a geek/nerd wasn't trendy. Anyway, the internet has solved a lot of the recommendation and curation problems of the past, so the independent bookstores have had to struggle to find a way to add value such that people actually shop there. It's possible, but much tougher than the past, imho.
dilemma 9y ago
Independent bookstores have different selections as they are often targeted at some niche whereas a chain focuses on bestsellers and proven authors. Still, Amazon has increased my reading by several thousand percent, because the books I read now I wouldn't know about without Amazon nor would I be able to purchase them.
matwood 9y ago
> I also don't really see how independent is a useful thing in a book shop anyway. What if you never see great book on the shelf because it's an indie book and not published by one of the big 5? That's really where an independent bookshop comes into play. In this way Amazon operates closer to an independent because it pushes indie books as well.

strictnein 9y ago

I miss bookstores, but it's mostly sentimental. Back in the early 90s I used to love to peruse the tech section of our local Borders (a former competitor to Barnes & Noble, in the huge bookstore category). It was the only place I could go to easily be exposed to technologies and products that I had never heard of. Also great where the game development books that would have a CD just full of the weirdest and craziest games that they got from who knows where.