Farewell, Old Friend!
“Your friend is your needs answered.” Kahlil Gibran
There are no words to fully express how much I will miss you, but I will try.
• I’ll miss your welcome, the fact that your arms were always open to me.
• I’ll miss the fun and enjoyment I found with you.
• I’ll miss the comfortable shoulder to lean on for advice, help with difficult projects, information, and the knowledge from your 40 years of experience.
• I’ll miss your way with words.
• I’ll miss hearing about and meeting all the great and outstanding people you knew. For example, you introduced me to Barack Obama when he published his first memoir.
• I’ll miss our regular meetings, the many teas I drank in your company.
• I’ll miss the refuge I found whenever I sought you out.
• I’ll miss exploring new worlds, new ideas, new authors, and new books with you.
• I’ll miss the heady feeling of being in the presence of greatness.
• I’ll miss your smell – that comfortable mixture of warmth, age, tranquility, understanding, powdery paper, and something indefinable that always permeated your surroundings.
• I’ll miss the friend I made in 2002 and who added greatly to my personal enjoyment and development.
• I’ll plain old miss going to visit you in downtown San Diego.
“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” Jerry Seinfeld
Yesterday, when I read the announcement that Borders Books was closing all its stores, I felt not surprise but resignation. Ever since it started closing stores several months ago, I knew its time was limited.
The end of an era.
For me, personally, Borders became part of my downtown San Diego experience. It was too good to last – and I sensed it almost from the start. A big bookstore set in the pleasure-seeking Gaslamp District mainly populated by young people out for a good time, tourists, cruise ship sightseers, homeless, and ball game lovers seemed out-of-place. The aisles were often empty as was the large music area upstairs.
Downstairs, the comfy armchairs and tables next to the coffee shop were occupied more by students who used the bookstore as a library, people reading the books and especially the magazines for free, or taking a rest/having a snooze. How often did I get angered to see someone defacing a new book, pulling back the pages and thus rendering it unsalable? How often did I wonder at the high maintenance and overhead of such a place, and how long could Borders accept their losses?
Of course, as a budding book author, I dreamed of the day that my books would grace their shelves. Even when I realized how illusionary this dream was, I still held on to my hopes.
For me, Borders downtown (which closed several months ago thus signaling the fast approach of the Borders Books’ demise) is akin to losing one of my close San Diego friends. A gap in the tooth. My old neighborhood is changing.
This comes as a result of two dominant forces: the dramatic switch to online book purchases, mainly Amazon. And importantly, it signals the change in book publishing – the almost overnight switch to e-books and readers (Kindle, Nook, etc.) in little more than a couple of years.
People will continue to buy print books but in less quantity. I foresee the day when I will also use a Kindle, simply because it’s more convenient even though I belong to the dwindling group – mainly older – who prefers the touch, feel, enjoyment of turning real pages. It will be the same as replacing the typewriter with a computer – I balked at first – but as everything else in this rapidly changing world, I’ll get used to this new book presentation. Almost.
Is the print book, the one we have known all of our lives, on its way to be relegated to the world of typewriters and radios and CDs? The printing press has been with us over 500 years since Johannes Gutenberg invented the it circa 1439. How many more years will books, in their current form, exist? Maybe just table top books, picture books, and a few special ones. Maybe limited press runs.
Or am I predicting too dismal a future for print books? Perhaps Harry Potter fans will grow up and this industry will rebound, though never to the same level as before.
For now, Barnes & Noble reigns supreme and long may they live to carry on the baton in this world of dying print books.
And long live those bastions of immortality: the independent bookstore, and the second-hand bookstores, and even the book sections in your local supermarket.
Photo credits: Mary Osborne
Tags: Ageism, Book lovers, Book publishing, Bookstore closures, Bookstores, Borders books, Changes, downsizing, Downtown San Diego, Fall from grace, Loss of old friends, Print books
This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Ageism, Discovering a different America, Facing Obstacles in Life, Life Challenges, San Diego, Writers and Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
34 Responses to “Farewell, Old Friend!”
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I too am beginning to miss the bookstores bigtime. However, since I live in a rural community it has only been in the last several years that I’ve been so mobile that I’ve visited them on a really regular basis. Up to then I had to be content with occasional stops to buy (usually) specific titles. I learned to order books as soon as I could and the blessing of the internet certainly helped to fill my numerous bookshelves. I do love the feel and the smell of a physical book in my hand, I delight in turning the pages back to re-enjoy a certain passage or to check out a fact. However, I was one of the first to purchase the now-obsolete Rocket Reader (my first novel was published as an e-book) and only recently bought an I-Pad where I enjoy Kindle editions of books I’m in a hurry to get. So I shall enjoy the best of more than one world and remember with nostalgia the bookstores which sadly eem to be disappearing.
Betty,
How interesting that you were so ahead of the time and bought a Rocket Reader, and published an e-book. When was that? Would be interested to find out more. Do you have a website?
I know just what you mean Penelope. My favourite way of spending time is browsing in The Book Centre in Wexford. They provide comfortable chairs and you are welcome to sit and browse through potential purchases. They also have a coffee shop upstairs.
I have a Sony e-reader. It is a solution to a travel problem. With more and more luggage restrictions I found it to be a gift. However’ reading is multi-sensory for me and it doesn’t feel or smell like a book. An one little e-reader looks very sad and lonely sitting on a shelf by itself. I’ll keep doing my bit to try and keep the bookshops open.
Mary,
How I relate to your description as that’s precisely what I loved to do at Borders (and also at Barnes & Noble that now reigns supreme but is not as accessible for me). I have to laugh at the visual of your e-reader on a shelf all by itself.
I must say how much I too, will miss Borders. Your eulogy says it all. For me it was always a wonderful way to spend an afternoon, browsing for just the right present, marvelling at the diversity of subjects, the endless supply of knowledge, the incredible imagination and creativity of the human mind. It seems incredible that these marvelous bookstores will cease to be and I can only hope the few remaining will be able to survive.
Anne,
I echo your sentiments. How I will miss my afternoons browsing the shelves, discovering new books and authors, and along the way, acquiring new information, interests, and insights about subjects I’d never have thought I’d want to read about. I also hope this does not signal the end of bookstores as we know them.
Hey Penelope,
Bookstores closing…that has to be awful.We had a cute lil book store near our house but somehow it shut down when I had gone for college. No news of where the book guy went. We miss him, and the feeling is awful.
Hajra,
Bookstores closing. It is the end of an era – one that lasted centuries and gave great pleasure to many. I’ve been going to bookstores since I was a kid and delight in what I find there. I loved Borders (or Barnes & Noble) because I could also sit in one of their comfy armchairs and sort through the books I wanted to buy. That is something else I’m going to miss. However, there still are plucky little bookstores that carry on.
A fitting obituary for an essential of civilization. I hope it’s not an omen for all booksellers.
Thom,
Thanks for calling this a fitting obituary as that is what I intended. I also hope it is not an omen, but rather a warning, to other booksellers.
What a great piece of writing to kick off your post, you had me sucked in totally as I didnt scroll down,though the Barack Obama bit got me thinking ha ha!
It is sad to lose so many bookshops. I do believe a few will survive. There is a great one in Perth running events, music and such. To survive they must bring more – as Borders tried to do but unsuccessfully.
Whilst I may purchase many of my books online and have even bought a few electronic ones nothing beats spending a couple of hours in a bookshop – bliss. I think theyll be around for longer than we think.
Maureen,
I hope that you are right and bookstores will be around a lot longer than we think. I read that a big reason for Borders having to close was poor marketing decisions. So maybe its closure does not signal the end of an era, but rather, a warning to other bookstores, particularly chains, to watch how they are going to market themselves in the future.
So sorry to hear that you have lost a place you liked…I personally love working in libraries. I was wondering what the future book shops will look like. Maybe just like a cyber cafe.
Let’s hope we won’t lose such old fashioned shops too quickly!
Muriel,
From the comments I have received, it looks as if the book reading market is still hanging fiercely to their print books even while acquiring e-readers for practical reasons. Nothing like the touch and feel of the real thing. So maybe small and independent bookstores will actually rebound for the many of us who enjoy browsing in person rather than online or on a tablet.
It is a shame to see Borders go, leaving B&N with a virtual monopoly among the big chains. It very well may have to do with how books are bought and/or packaged, and hopefully nothing to do with poor literacy or lack of interest in books. The trends are going to proceed with or without us. I suppose the best we can do it try to keep up and make the best of it, especially as writers.
Adriene,
You are so right. We will have to try to keep up with new trends, especially as writers, and somehow adapt our reading and writing according to the new market. E-books are so much more practical, bypassing all the massive distribution problems that have been every writer’s and bookstore’s nightmare. However, I do think there is a decrease in literacy and less book reading than say, up to two decades ago. But I may be mistaken and with the upsurge of Kindle, etc. people may read much more than before. I hope so.
Wonderful post Penelope. Personally, I envision a world where print and books coexist, each serving a unique purpose. I believe ebooks are the greener choice, also easier on my ailing eyes. But some books just need to be printed to be appreciated (photography, art, poetry) to name a few. Let’s hope the reading world appreciates the uniqueness of both. For it is they who will push it forward.
Thanks for a thought provoking, emotional post.
~cath xo
Twitter @jonesbabie
Cath,
I hope you are right that print and e-books can coexist. However, I have my doubts. We will just have to, as you say, push forward and see what happens.
Cath,
I hope that you are right and both print and e-books will flourish side-by-side. Definitely, some books, such as the kind you mention, can never be replaced with e-books so while we may expect a transformation, the bookstore will probably continue to exist for the foreseeable future.
Very thought provoking post. It really is sad that the internet has done so much damage. Up until now I never really had much empathy for the demise of the movie and music industries but there really is something nostalgic about going into a book store to pick out a book. Even with the advent of kindles and ebooks, they will never replace the feeling of reading your favorite book in print (especially hard cover)
I for one will continue to stock my library (well one bookcase for now) with my favorite books. I have tried the ereader and it just isn’t for me. If I have to read an ebook I read it on my laptop instead.
It’ll be so sad if we read books on kindle. . . .
Josie,
It may not come to that. At least, not for a long time as so many other people seem to prefer print books for the sheer sensory joys of touch and feel, and turning the pages.
What a beautiful, sentimental piece! I, too, will miss Borders. I remember when I was not married to my husband yet, we would meet up at a Borders in downtown Chicago and I would just wander around and enjoy the smell of books all around me. I remember thinking one can survive inside here, lol! Like you, I resist the idea of giving in to e-readers as I love the smell of books and flipping through physical pages. It’s just all too sad
Joy,
So you also have very fond memories of Borders. I love that you mention the “smell” of books. Every time I walked into Borders, that enticing smell would envelop me. Actually, that is one of the things I will miss most because each bookstore has its unique smell.
Oh, eBooks are great, and I love my nook. But I think sinister thoughts in the dead of night…
Who here has data trapped on a 5.25″ or 3.5″ floppy disk? Is it worth tracking down the expensive equipment to update it?
What if the power goes out, the battery goes dead, and you cannot afford to replace it? Will someone loan you their Kindle and not make you give them some sort of collateral?
What happens when all the knowledge is controlled by those who control the servers, the power, the money to buy these gadgets?
I worry about the loss of printed books. Some people just look at me and shake their heads as if it’s a crazy, paranoid thought. I worry about our US Postal Service, too. Stamps. Paper letters.
And I don’t honestly think it’s going to do our dwindling forests a darned bit of good.
Holly,
Yes, those are good reasons to worry about the future of e-books and e-readers. Also, what happens when your Kindle, like your computer, gets old and runs down? Will you lose all your books, all your bookmarks and annotations? Also, how can your Kindle add warmth and character to your home? As for the U.S. Postal Service and real phone calls from land lines and postcards and letters – will we really dispense with them completely? I haven’t received a handwritten letter in years. Have you? You are right to worry about them.
Hi Penelope -
I’ve been concerned about the fading art of printed matter (books, magazines, the personally hand-written love note, ect.). We (society) are losing our character in so many ways. And we are creating a vast separation between rich & poor. Yes, this also has to do with books. It makes me very sad and I’m glad I wasn’t born recently. I don’t want to be alive 70 years from now.
Charlie,
It makes me sad to agree with you. The dwindling market for print books may be yet another sign of this nation’s loss of character though I don’t know how the book market in other countries has been affected. I do know that in a country like Mexico that is largely illiterate, books are venerated and print book sales are actually going up. Like you, I’m glad that I was born at a time when I could enjoy print books and bookstores and the arts free of all the technological clutter and noise surrounding us today.
Penelope,
I heard the remaining superstore is not doing well either. What bothers me about the demise of bookstores is that it’s one less face-to-face place and it’s hard to accidentally find something you love on the web.
I find gobs of stuff on the web, but I tend to be looking for it.
The technology folks keep selling us back stuff in more expensive versions. now you don’t just need the ebook, you need the thing to read the ebook.
All this isolation – to me breeds the violence we see everywhere, like Norway – they don’t have real people to bounce reality off of.
I expect small bookstores with a dueling theme – like cafe – will re-emerge.
Technology has a dehumanizing downside folks do not talk about.
thx, G.
Giulietta,
You make some profound observations. I agree wholeheartedly with not being able to find the books we want face-to-face so to speak. One can read all about them on Amazon or Goodreads, get others’ opinions and reactions, but there’s nothing quite like actually holding the book, looking inside it, maybe reading a bit, finding out if it’s really the kind of book that “calls” to you to be read rather than what has happened to me, to receive a lovely bundle from Amazon only to be disappointed at the presentation or the format or the writing style, or it just doesn’t “feel” right for me.
I hope your expectation for small bookstores with a dual theme will emerge. I gather they are big in Europe. And I love the way you summarize the effect of technology. This should be a theme for one of your next blog posts. I can only imagine the emotional, physical, social, health and intellectual toll on the younger generation, and what future generations will look like, behave, speak, emote, etc.
This is really sad. Specially for people who used to hang out there and spend lots of time picking the right reading materiel.
Hi Sailor,
You voice the sentiments that so many of us share. Where will we hang out now and be able to look for the right reading material. Perhaps the answer is, as someone commented, in bookstore/cafes with a dual theme, similar to what is very popular in Europe, which might partially fill the hole left by the closure of major bookstores.
I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but I have always wanted to study a Master’s in Library and Information Science. It would probably not be very convincing on my application form, but part of the reason is my love for the physical book. When I think of my favorite places in Vancouver, I often imagine and feel the bookstores and libraries. It’s too bad that there aren’t any free, public libraries in Huancayo.
I will now also be imagining seeing your book on their shelves one day. =) Maybe it can’t be at Borders, but at another bookstore, waving at you with pride. =)
Samantha,
I think that publishers are going to find out soon that there are still many of us who love physical books, and while the market for them may be smaller, it’s still huge. The problem with Borders was mainly that they overreached, tried to diversify, and bucked the coming trend until it was too late. They also made their bookstores so comfy that a lot of non-customers tended to use them more like a library, mishandling both books and magazines, and not buying anything. The other problem was that they just too large. What they should have done or bookstores may do in the future, as Giulietta mentioned, is have more small scale coffee house cum bookstores as they do in Europe. This might work very well for customer and bookseller alike.
As for my book on the shelves, I gave up on that idea long ago, but thanks.