What I Think about Bookstores

This coming Friday, Borders will cease to exist.  It’s sad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that many friends of mine will be without jobs.  Trusting in their ability to find new employment, I’ll focus my thoughts today on the state of the book industry and the death of such a symbol.

Growing up, my mother took us to two bookstores at least once a week.  The first was The Bookworm.  It was a small bookstore tucked into a strip mall near one of our favorite restaurants.  It specialized in kids books.  I think it was there that I became fascinated with reading.  They had a nice little bunk bed area where I always tucked myself in with the latest Tintin or Choose Your Adventure book.  I like to think my mother had to drag me away from it.  The other was the Little Professor, another strip mall bookstore that had the full gambit of books and where I discovered the full myriad of fantasy and science fiction novels.  I can recall spending almost an hour browsing the stacks, unable to decide which book I wanted to read.

The Bookworm has somehow survived the past 20 years of mega-bookstores and has expanded to include adult books and book clubs, their relationship with Berkshire Hathaway probably had something to do with that.  I was saddened to return from college one year to find the Little Professor had been closed.  I think it’s pretty clear that they were not the only bookstore impacted by mega-stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble. 

I remember when I first walked into the Borders in Chicago on Michigan Avenue.  I about wet myself, overwhelmed with the possibilities that awaited me.  I visited that store almost once a week for the two years I lived in Chicago.  I didn’t always buy a book, but I always kept my eye out for the next thing I would study.  By the end of my stay in Chicago I’d discovered a new bookstore to enjoy, Amazon.com.  I found that Amazon finally provided some of the books I really wanted and went through my savings fairly quickly.

Now it’s 15 years later and Borders is closing.  Barnes and Noble and all the other bookstores are now facing a serious shift in the industry: electronic books.  I remember in 2000 when Stephen King published his first e-book “Riding the Bullet.”  It was basically a PDF of his short story, but even he predicted then that e-books would revolutionize the industry.  Today, Kindles and Nooks and iPads provide easy access to thousands of books without having to spend hours looking through stacks.  They make it so you don’t have to lug 15 pounds of reading materials through the airports or school hallways.  At the touch of a finger, the greatest classics are available for us for FREE.

So, what happens now?  Simple.  Bookstores will need to downsize and cater to both the published and electronic versions of books.  You won’t see mega-stores with endless stacks like the Borders in Chicago.  Instead you’ll see trimmed down bookstores with electronic kiosks in the corners for folks to plug in their e-readers and search/buy their books.  The coffee shops and restaurants attached will get larger and more comfortable.  Bookstores will become great places to come and read or study or listen to music, even more than they are today.  Bookstores will become less about where people can find books and more about where people can come to enjoy their books.  And why not?  I still remember that bunk bed at the Bookworm 30 years later.  In another 30 years will I remember sitting at the table, sipping on my café latte and enjoying the latest Stephen King novel, a local jazz band crooning to a soft Miles Davis song?  Yeah, I hope so.

Perhaps this will be the rebirth of the small specialized bookstore.  The Little Professor will re-open and cater to the young adult market which seems to be the strongest today.  The Bookworm will expand to include more bean bags and more reading spaces.  What’s important is that there should always be a place to go and find and read books, whether they’re printed or projected.  Reading is as much a social activity as it is a personal expansion of the human soul.  It’s cliché now to imagine me reading a good novel with a coffee cup in the other hand, but so what?  I’ll take it because it is just as meaningful to me today as it was to sit on that bunk bed 30 years ago.  There will always be people who will buy printed books.  I don’t think the e-book will ever end that.  But, bookstores should become havens of exploration where people can come and read and discuss and enjoy their books, with some food, coffee and music added in for extra flavor.    May that experience never, ever go away.