Bookstores
Bookstore
Over the past few years I’ve been buying a lot of my books online at amazon.com or even on eBay. I’ve also been going to the public library here in Blacksburg which as public libraries go is a pretty decent library. However, when shopping online or even at the library, I tend to pick up books that are challenging reads, and many of them take me a long time to get through. If I bought them, that’s not a problem, however I’ve racked up a few late fees at the library (no more than what it would have cost me to purchase the book outright). I’ve also tended to pick up books that spend a long time on my bedside table as I have been known to start reading something else and at times have had as many as four or five books ongoing at once. An example of these are (all of which I’ve started and will eventually finish):
- The Baroque Cycle by Neal Steaphenfon of which I’m about half way through The System of the World
- Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
- The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
- April 1865 by Jay Winik
I recently started reading some quick fun easy-to-read science fiction and fantasy books which I’ve found are fast reads. Maybe it’s the “summer reading,” or maybe I just happened upon them as someone leant me one of them. Thinking about my other recent reads in my quest for reading, I’ve bitten off some bigger bites than I should have with some of those above (even thought I do enjoy them, I just can’t seem to read them quickly and find my self dozing off for naps or only getting through a few pages before falling asleep at night).
To illustrate my point, I ripped through The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and just as fast ripped through Eldest by Christopher Paolini and found myself eager to turn pages and really enjoying the science fiction/fantasy genera, which was always something I enjoyed but seem to have moved away from more recently.
After finishing Eldest I went to my bookshelf and nothing (even those that I had already started) really looked like something I really wanted to pick up. I looked around online, but it just wasn’t doing it for me so this morning I went to the bookstore. I found myself in the science fiction/fantasy section having a ball. It was very reminiscent to when I used to go to the bookstore when i was 16 or so and coming home with a stack of books. In fact, I purchased five books mostly from that same section of the store.
- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
- Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
- Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
- Shadowmarch by Tad Williams
- The Summoner by Gail Z. Martin
I guess the point of this blog is that there is something very gratifying that happens to me at bookstores which I just can’t seem to get from the online stores and amazingly even at the library. I did notice while looking around online after coming home from the bookstore that Barnes & Noble has broken from Amazon and their new online bookstore tries very hard to duplicate that “bookstore feeling.” Only time will tell if BN can finally make some progress against Amazon, but I feel that the next time I’m in the market for books or don’t know what I should read next, I’ll go to an actual bookstore rather than browse around online as I just had more fun, bought more books, and am psyched about reading.
With that said…….
Weird that I came across my own blog posting on google when I was searching for something almost two years after I wrote it. Needless to say, I now us Paperback Swap and Bookmooch for a lot of my reading needs, but I still buy too many books in the bookstore when I happen to be in one.