On Books-Slowness

I have never been a fast reader. Even as a child I took my time reading unless I  was reading a rip-roaring yarn, a great story, which made me want desperately to get to the ending so that I could satisfy my greed for the denouement.

As I grew older, I still took my time reading, depending on the subject. If it was a literary work, I would take my time to savor the writing, to learn how to make that feeling that I get when reading great writing appear in my own writing. If I am reading technical books or other non-fiction books for a class or for work, I read carefully, pour over repeatedly, and copious amounts of notes are taken to be read in my own sweet time. I read to make sure I get all the substance of what the author is communicating.

But, if I am under time pressure to complete my reading, I will speed up or skim rapidly as if I had the sword of Damocles hanging over me. That kind of reading is less than satisfying as I am consciously trying too hard to be efficient, which perversely makes me less efficient. My comprehension rate during that time is the functional inverse of my reading speed, so I end up reading the same papers and books repeatedly to gain the same kind of comprehension that I would have gained if I read slowly through the first time.

The last kind of reading is the recreational kind, where I am devouring mysteries, popular fiction, and other entertaining genres. I will admit that I don’t do too much of that anymore. I don’t know why, but they stopped being interesting to me, except for certain authors and series. Considering that this is reading for leisure, I tend to read slowly as well, except when I reach a point in the story where I start to project the eventual ending and I revert to my childhood habit of rushing through the book in search of the denouement.

I rarely go back and re-read the recreational reading books, but I recently have returned to some of what I consider to be exceedingly well written mysteries series because I lacked new reading material. The experience has been mixed. For some, rushing through the book quickly was a good strategy as I have found that the plotting or the writing left much to be desired, something that I ignored or didn’t notice the first time through. Yet for other authors and book series, I realized that I missed all the details and Easter eggs the authors had left for the readers to find. I skipped right over them the first time. A reminder from the reading gods to read slowly and pleasurably.

My preference for slow reading also influences my book collecting habits. Although I love libraries as an institution, and I am a proponent of using the library as often as possible; I prefer buying my reading material from indie and used books stores online. The reason is that I cannot stand being on a two weeklong reading treadmill, trying to finish reading a book before it is due back to the library, it is not satisfying reading. I realize I can extend the borrowing period, but there is also the fear that the library would not extend the borrowing period if the book were a popular commodity.  

So it is that when I joined Goodreads I was surprised when I discovered  all the Goodreads reading contests which promote and encourage people to read as many books as possible in a selected time period, usually a year. I understand their motivation rationally: Goodreads is owned by Amazon and Amazon wants to sell books; I get it. My surprise is that there are so many who have taken on these challenges willingly. I could see where that challenge could be attractive to many people. I'm just not one of them. I had not realized that reading has attain the status of a competitive sport.

Even though my friends know me as an avid reader, I don't go through as many books as my friends think I do.

I was thinking about this as I was reading a book by Frédérick Gros, a French philosopher. The book is titled: A Philosophy of Walking. (Gros, 2011) The subject of chapter 5 of this book on walking was about Slowness. My mind immediately drew parallels between the walking experience that Gros is describing and my own reading habit of reading slowly.

Gros’ point is that the walking activity needs to be the focus of the walking activity. Indeed, there are other focuses to be undertaken as we walk: to get in shape, to race from point A to point B in minimal time. If indeed, walking is your focus, then speed should not be the focus, walking should be the focus. If one is walking while focusing on pace, then one is missing out on the greatest benefit of walking: to be absorbed in the experience of walking, to be in the flow of walking, to lose yourself in the act of walking, to gain the unconscious perspective that is walking.

Turning to my parallel viewpoint.  If indeed, reading is your focus, then reading quickly should not be the focus, reading should be the focus. If one is reading while focusing on pace, then one is missing out on the greatest benefit of reading: to be absorbed in the act of reading, to be in the flow of reading, to lose yourself in the act of reading, to gain the unconscious perspective that is reading.

Many of the things that Gros said about walking applies to my idea of reading.

Slow is not the opposite of fast. Slow is the opposite of haste. Making haste in reading, as in walking,  is to create an unnecessary and unwelcomed pressure within our psyche to hurry what is natural so that we end up in an unnatural state of haste.

Gros said that there must be an extreme regularity of paces, to apply a uniformity to walking; so it is with reading as well. In order to derive pleasure from reading, to gain perspectives of what is being read, to gain understanding, to allow the mind to contemplate the beauty, cadence, and structure of what is being read; there must be an extreme regularity of paces, to apply a uniformity to reading. This is an impossibility if the speed of reading is aligned with making haste, with consuming the words mechanistically, as opposed absorbing the meanings, digesting the ideas, contemplating the way the ideas are communicated, and appreciating the artistry of the writer.

Gros believes that there is an illusion associated with  speed, that walking speedily saves time. This illusion also exists with reading, reading quickly, and skimming haphazardously will save the reader time. What to do with all that saved time? Inevitably, it is to re-read what was missed in reading the first time while in a heated rush.

Haste and speed accelerate the passing of time; yet it also means that the reader is not fully using. The slowness of reading deepens the space that the reader inhabits in the minds of the writer, whereas reading in haste makes the space around the reading more shallow.

Walking slowly makes the natural landscape become more familiar for the walker. Reading slowly  makes the writer’s written landscape become more familiar for the reader. After all, that is the greatest of reading pleasures.

According to Gros, when the walker is fully engrossed in the act of walking, it isn’t the walker that moves, it is the landscape that moves around the walker. Same could be said about reading:  when the reader is fully engrossed in the act of reading, it isn’t the reader that moves through what is written, it is the written  that moves around the reader.

This short contemplation about reading  has led me to think about my reading habits. I realize that as I slow down the pace of my reading,  my familiarity with the author’s world grows. The more deliberate I become, the slower I read. There is much to be gained from reading slowly. I grew to be more appreciative of the writing itself. Of course, when it comes to reading a rip-roaring yarn, a great story; I will need to consciously discipline myself to avoid haste, to practice what I preach.

Works Cited

Gros, F. (2011). A Philosophy of Walking. London: Verso Books.

 

 

On Books-Confessions of a Bookstore Snob Part 2: My Favorite Bookstores

 Since I am a self-appointed bookstore snob, there are bookstores that I think are doing it right and doing it well, this is a list of  my favorite bookstores. They are all just a little different from one another, some differences are obvious, and some differences are not.  The reasons why these bookstores are  favorites are sometimes ethereal rather than real. I start with the famous large bookstores and amble my way to the smaller and more eclectic stores. I will end with an elegy for stores that are no longer in business and why my memories about them will always stay in my mind.

My relationship with Powell’s Bookstore goes back many years. I was in Seattle in 1990 for a technical conference and one of my college friends lived in Portland at the time, so I took the opportunity to visit Portland from Seattle. We spent a day driving around the Oregon coast and then he took me to Powell’s Bookstore. We went with his family in tow including his grandmother-in-law, his wife ,and his newborn baby daughter.

We walked in and I must have looked stunned because he and his wife just laughed at me. They told me to go look around while they went to the coffee shop. They told me to visit for as long as I wanted. By the way, the Powell’s coffee shop was the first coffee shop that I had ever seen in a bookstore, before all the others followed suit.

I walked around the store impressed at the immenseness of the building, stunned by the broad selection of books, and excited by the number of genres represented in one bookstore. I used to joke that they had a special shelf for seventeenth century Japanese haikus and not all of the books were written by Basho. I was not able to visit all the floors because I was very conscious of the fact that I'm spending my friend’s family time and I doubt that the family would have wanted to spend the entire day in a bookstore. I did gather quite a haul, which I carelessly stuffed into my bag and hurriedly drove back to Seattle for my return flight. The guy at the check-in counter informed me that  I was  five pounds over the weight limit. As I was frantically trying to figure out what to do, the check-in agent asked whether I was shipping bricks home. Not thinking, I said I was just in Portland, he interrupted me and said: “you went to Powell’s, didn't you?” He waved his hand and said: “go ahead I know what it's like.” Everyone in the Pacific Northwest knows and loves Powell’s.

I had visited Powell’s numerous times in the intervening years, whether I visited Seattle, or Portland I made sure  I visited Powell's. I attended two technical conferences in Portland in 2018, so, I took full advantage. In fact, I have gotten to know the Powell's City of Books so well that I have memorized the Powell’s floorplan to make it easier for me to look at all the sections that I wanted to visit, I cannot claim the same about the city of Portland.

One thing that I do miss is the Powell’s Technical Bookstore. It was folded back into the main store a few years ago. On one of my visits to Portland, I walked around the block numerous times where the technical bookstore resided, but  there was a different storefront. The mothership City of Books, still has a formidable technical section, but it was comforting to have a dedicated technical bookstore.

A brief description for those of you who have not been to Powell’s, it is 6 floors of heaven. As you walk in, before you get too far into the store, there is a counter with people manning it, their job is to guide you and give you foldup maps of the store, that's how big it is. Powell’s has its own parking garage. It is wall to wall bookcases.  They display the new and used books together on the same shelf, the first and only place that I have seen this practice. Powell’s is what I had imagined the Cemetery of Lost Books from Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s novel Shadow of the Wind would look like.

I spent many happy hours savoring the smell of the books, as well as the sights of fellow book lovers poring through the stacks, the seductive covers, and promises of a new book beckoning me to take it off the shelf to sample its contents. There is no other feeling like it.

Once, during one of my rare sojourns to the Pacific Northwest,  I got out of my Lyft ride and there was a line snaking all the way around the block, which led up to the Pearl room.  The reason was that  Bruce Springsteen was signing his book in the Pearl room, that kept me from my technical books habit. It was going to be a few hours, but that was no problem, I just wandered around the rest of Powell’s, shopping for reading material. I was able to visit my technical book collection after Springsteen had left the building a few hours later.

I always walked away a few hundred dollars poorer but much richer in the currency of the soul. As online book buying became more convenient and ubiquitous, I started  to buy from Powell’s online. In fact, I used the reverse Amazon strategy in this endeavor. Many book shoppers would look through the brick and mortar bookstores to add to their wish list and then buy those books on Amazon.  I do the opposite: I  look up books on Amazon, and keep it on my Amazon phone app, THEN  I go to independent brick or mortar stores or independent electronic bookstores to buy those books from the independents. I am sure Amazon does not care.

This is an everything-to-everyone bookstore that got it right. Unfortunately, the pandemic has hit Powell’s hard. They closed the brick and mortar bookstores to keep their customers and employees safe; so they have been subsisting on just the electronic commerce. Once that word got out, many Powell’s fans have been buying books on their website to help them stay alive. I hope that they can recover. I want to visit them sometime soon.

Another large independent everything-to-everyone bookstore is the Tattered Cover in Denver CO, there are a few locations of the Tattered Cover all around the Denver Metro area;  I have been to three of them. The one that I was the most familiar with is the one in Lodo in downtown Denver. The Lodo store had two floors at one time, while  the first floor was impressive, the combination of the first and second floor was magical. The trip upstairs on the very wide staircase made me feel like I was  on an important and sacred quest in search of knowledge.  I still like the Lodo store, it just does not seem as complete without that second floor.

I had left the Denver area after having lived there for six years. I was not living there when the Tattered Cover opened its initial store in Cherry Creek. Luckily, my friend Karen introduced me to the Tattered Cover on Colfax. I giggled a little bit when she told me where it was because Colfax Avenue had a certain reputation in the Denver of my youth.  As she drove me there, it was another come to Jesus moment for me. The Colfax Avenue Tattered Cover used to be a theater.  They were able to strip the seats and other telltale signs of the theater out and they put bookshelves in every artful theatrically defined space.  There are bookcases onstage, in the backstage, and in every space imaginable. There is also a grand entrance to the theater that is filled with the magazine section.  The sweeping twin staircases that led to the lower level  took you to more hidden bibliophilic treasures. The architectural charms of that theater manifest itself in all the details that are on the walls and in the shape of the building; indeed, what better complement to the architecture than bookcases?

The bonus with the Colfax Avenue Tattered Cover is the old-fashioned music store that is located right next door. The Twist and Shout sells vinyl, CDs , DVDs,  and other audio medium, it is the music equivalent to the Tattered Cover. The familiar smell of incense will hit your nostrils, your mind will wander to that time in our lives when we burned incense to cover up the smells of other burning things.  Of course, that is something no one must worry about anymore, at least in Colorado. It is usually a four-hour visit for me between both stores. There is the ubiquitous coffee shop with fine pastries attached to the Tattered Cover, and of course there is an impressive parking garage in the complex for your parking pleasures.

Carmichael Books in Louisville Ky is quite different from Powell’s and the Tattered Cover. Whereas the other two are both physically large and ambitious in intentions, Carmichael Books is smaller physically but equally ambitious in intention. There are two Carmichael Books that I frequent; one is on Bardstown Road and the other is on Frankfurt Avenue. The Frankfurt store has a large children's book section that takes up most of the backroom, with the store space thus defined and limited, their selection of non-children’s and YA books is also more limited than the Bardstown location. The Bardstown store is in a little house, by virtue of the shape of the lot and the house, they have had to build their displays upwards.  At Bardstown, the first place I check, after the front display tables, is right next to the cash register: the shelves holding the  employee’s recommendations. The uniqueness of the staff’s selection makes up for limited scope. I go to Louisville often, at least twice a year and I always make a trip to both Carmichael Books. I will inevitably walk away with new purchases from both stores. It is not that I am a glutton for books, although I am that, it is just that the selection of books at Carmichael Books so intrigues me and I cannot fight the urge to buy.  

One distinguishing feature about Carmichael Books is that the store owners and employees are truly proud to champion their local authors. I had heard of Wendell Berry before I started visiting Carmichael Books, but I really got a taste of all of Wendell Berry’s writings because Carmichael Books carries just about every single book that he has ever written. I was also able to find an extensive section of books about Kentucky Bourbon, as well as books on Kentucky. Most bookstores will tout their local history, literary heritage, and defining cultural specialties; but Carmichael’s attention to their part of these United States seem particularly enthusiastic.

Carmichael Books is a unique little bookstore that will envelope you with their charm. Being in Carmichael Books is akin to sitting back on your favorite chair while wrapped in your favorite blanket and drinking your favorite hot beverage, you are cozy. The Bardstown area is an esoteric area of Louisville, I always take the scenic route leaving the Bardstown store by taking a serpentine way through a neighborhood of  beautiful old houses with giant porticos and grand lawns.

I have been to Full Circle Bookstore only once. I was visiting Oklahoma City for a volleyball coaches convention.  I found the Full Circle Bookstore on the Indiebooks.com website. It really did not seem too promising when I realized that Full Circle Bookstore is housed in a shopping mall, the hairs in the back of my head started to stand up but I went ahead. It was late December in Oklahoma City and I was not expecting much. I was rewarded with amazement. The bookstore itself seemed so much bigger then what I had guessed. The selection of books was exceptionally good. I was browsing as I always do when I go to an unknown bookstore, so I was not looking for specific books, but I found books that appealed. It was right before Christmas so they had all of the decorations out; there was a bit of a chill in Oklahoma City so they had a nice roaring fire going in the fireplace with some comfy sofas strategically placed around the fireplace.  I found some books, I sat on one of the sofas and I started reading.  Then I got up, I looked for some more books, sat down again, and did some more reading, repeat a few more times until I sensed that it might be good form to buy those books. I expected my mom to walk in and tell me to go change into my PJs and just snuggle up on the couch. I did not do that, even though I was very tempted, I think they would have  kicked me out of the bookstore, although I am not so sure. It was just a very pleasant experience that I had never expected in a mall in Oklahoma City. I would love to go back and revisit.

I first visited the Elliott Bay Bookstore during a visit to Seattle, it was still in the old location, it impressed me as one of the rambling grand old bookstores. I remember parking on the street and marveling at their newfangled parking system. Its vibe was very comforting, the selection was broad and eclectic enough to hold my attention. I do remember that the store was hectic. I believe they have moved to a smaller, more out of the way location. Elliott Bay Bookstore always held a very warm spot in my heart because the first visit was just so enjoyable.

Another bookstore that I have only visited once is Politics and Prose. I was in Washington DC for a meeting, so this visit was strategically planned out and well executed. I did not have much time as  I arrived in DC the night before the meeting, so time was of the essence. I navigated  directly from the Washington National airport to  Politics and Prose. It would be very bad form if I visited DC without visiting Politics and Prose, because the bookstore is  famous amongst the cognoscenti of fine bookstores, for good reason.  They are also famous for hosting many author’s events. There are many YouTube videos of talks given at Politics and Prose by authors, famous and infamous. I was introduced to the historian John Lewis Gaddis by one of these YouTube videos, and for that I am very grateful. Politics and Prose is very welcoming to authors who give these book talks, but these talks are not just run of the mill bookselling book talks. The talks on serious topics  given by serious people are what drew me in.

I remember the store being  very spread out.  I picked up a couple of books there, one is A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger, I remembered thinking: why I had not seen the book before? I think I also picked up a couple of Italo Calvino books.

There was a  mechanical device that printed out self-published books sitting in one of the smaller rooms.  One just needed to bring in their manuscript on an USB drive and the machine will automatically typeset the book and print it out for you right away.  I also remember that parking was atrocious and  that I had to park way far away and then having to walk back to the bookstore.  I was hoping that I remembered where I parked my car, so I did not have to walk all around DC trying to find my car. I did, and I managed to find my way to my hotel and make my meeting the following day, after satiating in my bibliophilic urges, of course.

The Renaissance Bookstore in the General Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee was another unique experience. I was at a conference at the Milwaukee convention center and I was looking for the Renaissance Bookstore in downtown Milwaukee.  The concierge had to break the bad news to me: unfortunately, the downtown location had closed. I was sorely disappointed because they come highly recommended. But he did say that they have moved to the General Mitchell field airport in Milwaukee. I had flown in and out of General Mitchell field for years and never noticed. Why would you leave a prime downtown location to move to be a news stand in the airport? I did not know, and I did not hold out much hope.

When I left Milwaukee,  I drove to the airport extremely early and dropped off my car. I was walking around killing time when I remembered about the bookstore. It occupied a large chunk of the lobby of the Milwaukee airport, it was organized like all good used bookstores, very chaotically, and the store smelled like a used bookstore, a very good sign, and my hopes rose anew. The clerks at Renaissance Bookstore looked like people who worked in a very good used bookstore, i.e. not particularly well kempt but not sloppy either.

I spent as much time as I could before I had to go catch my flight and to my delight, I found a set of four hefty paperback books titled: The World of Mathematics, a new edition of an older series. Four books for $30. Are you kidding me? I jumped at it and those were the only books that I bought there that day because I just did not have time to browse further nor did I have the room in my carryon luggage since I had checked my luggage; I just had my little roller bag as a carryon so I stuffed my prize find into it. I was bursting with happiness as I dragged my now heavier roller bag through the airport.

The Renaissance Bookstore just defies expectations and descriptions,  it was just an oasis of used book happiness sitting in the middle of an airport. I think The Renaissance Bookstore solidified in my mind the necessity of having great used bookstores in all great airports.

Bookends and Beginnings in Evanston Il was a serendipitous find for me. I was in Evanston for a course on finite element analysis and I planned out my trip. Evanston is the home of Northwestern University, so I had great hopes. I was rewarded with Bookends and Beginnings, a quaint little bookstore that does not have everything to make everyone happy,  but its eclectic selection and the skill of the book buyer made it more than just a little interesting.

Bookends and Beginnings is hard to find, and they know it, they go out of their way to help people find the store; it is in an alley. Luckily for me it was close to my hotel, so I was able to walk to it because I suspected that parking was going to be an issue and it was. Even though I found it, it did not look too hopeful because it looked like a very high-end boutique-y  kind of place.  Until  you looked at the books on the table and you realize that this was a serious bibliophile oasis. I spent multiple hours there looking at books. One fantastic find are the many books by the writer Joseph Epstein. Those of you who know Joseph Epstein knows that he is a very erudite writer with a gentle wit. He is strongly opinionated about everything that he writes about. I attended one of his talks in Saint Louis at the Washington University in Saint Louis. As I was checking out, the clerk says: “Oh Joe Epstein, he comes in here often, he's a good friend of the store.”  that just added to the cool factor. This is a niche bookstore, they try to serve every patron as much as they can, but they obviously don't have the physical space, so they have to be very selective in their stock selection. Some of it was not to my taste but that is OK because they probably fit the taste of those who live in Evanston IL so that was a very good find.

Now let us talk, sadly, about long-lost friends. There are two bookstores that I particularly miss. Both bookstores played a role in my development as a bookstore snob. The first one is Oxford Books in Atlanta GA. I spent nine years in Atlanta as a gradual student at Georgia Tech. The selection at Oxford Books is pretty much the diametric opposite of what I was doing in my daily life, it provided a comforting counterpoint to my dominant mental process at the time. I became a regular habitué.  Oxford Books is hard to describe because my memories of the store are romantically tinted with only the fondest memories. There are two stores; one is Oxford Books which is buried deep in the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center. The sensory memory that I most remember are the sights and smell:  it looked like a serious bookstore, and it smelled like paper and glue as you entered, a most  comforting sensation. The selection at Oxford was amazing because I spent a ton of money at Oxford Books. In fact, I think they closed because I had moved away from Atlanta and they were deprived of my money when I left. The second store is called Oxford 2, which is right up the hill from Oxford books and is the used book counterpart.  I remember that it was brightly lit, with bright wooden floors. I remember thinking that I've never seen used books look so good. I don't know what they did but it was all very well organized, in sharp contrast to the stereotypical used book stores, which made it all the more inviting and attractive. Most used bookstores are full of used books stacked perilously as the customers navigated the labyrinth of meandering paths through the bookcases, being careful to not create an avalanche of falling books. They are also not very well categorized, although that is a part of a used bookstore’s charm. The smell of a used bookstore is also different, it does not smell like new paper and glue it smells like old paper and glue tempered by people’s houses, where these books were kept for many years. Between Oxford Books and Oxford 2 I spent most of my stipend from my gradual student days.

A few years after I left Atlanta, both stores met their demise. I do not remember why but I think they were victims of their own successes; the  stores were in a prime location so the rent could have just gotten to be too much to sustain. I keep using the word oasis for these bookstores, indeed that is what they felt like to an engineering gradual student who was under immense pressure to only think in the technical mode. I would go to Oxford and Oxford 2 just to get my mind realigned and rebalanced.

The second bookstore that I miss dearly fell victim to Borders. It is the Library Ltd. in St Louis Mo. After I moved to Saint Louis, I found the Library Ltd.  it was not too far from where I lived,  a very dangerous happenstance. I lived in Richmond Heights and the Library Ltd. was in downtown Clayton, within a five-minute drive of my home. It was housed in an immense building; a big part of the storefront was devoted to the fantasy Castle, which served as the  center of the children's book section. It was a work of love by the people who worked at the store. It became an identifying landmark for Library Ltd.   

Library Ltd.  was special and unique because it you could tell that book lovers owned it and you could tell book lovers work there because they were meticulous with their selections. The book buyers are the heroes, they picked a perfect balance of esoteric books along with usual popular books so that it drew in both kinds of crowds. Clayton is a very affluent suburb of Saint Louis, so they had to cater everyone if they wanted to survive.

If I had free time or if I needed to clear my mind, I would drive over to Library Ltd.  just to browse and enter my safe haven. Unfortunately, the owners decided that they wanted to get out of the book business, so they sold it to Borders. Borders told everyone in Saint Louis that they felt that the  Library Ltd.  is so unique that they would never  change it, but we were not fooled. The bibliophiles in the city of Saint Louis expected the worst but hoped for the best. It was not long before Borders announced that they were opening a new store a few miles from the old Library Ltd. location and closing the old store. I  remember driving by the old location after the move and seeing the magical Castle sitting forlornly in the otherwise empty space that housed one of the best bookstores I had ever experienced, it was a gut punch and a cut through the heart. The new Borders closed when Borders went out of business, I would like to think of their corporate demise as karma for buying Library Ltd. duplicitously and depriving Saint Louis of one of its best. Yes, I am still bitter.

One unifying theme that binds all my favorite bookstores together is the unique ethos that pervade these businesses. This obviously comes from the bookstore owner, but much of the feel and vibe of each bookstore also comes from the eclectic taste and sensibilities of the staff and the freedom that they have been given by the owners to fully exercise their uniqueness. The bookstores are much more than just physical incarnations; it is much more than just how imposing and aesthetically pleasing these bookstores are which excites us visually. There is a large bookstore in Dayton that completely waste their magnificent space because of the sterility that they had imposed on the ethos by filling the space with less than impressive book selections and a corporate non-personality. A soulful bookstore emits an ethereal feel as you enter and roam its bookcases.  All of that comes from the people who are manning the ramparts of the store front.

The store employees are trying to make a living, that is understood, but more importantly,  their passion and accrued knowledge makes each bookstore unique. One would certainly expect a bookstore employee to be well read, but the special quality that is palpable when you walk into a special bookstore is boosted by the people who work there and how passionately opinionated they are about books, not all books, just the great ones. They are our Sherpas in our journey towards enlightenment, if not happiness. These are the people who can recommend books by knowing what you have read, they know instinctively what your next book should be. Or they are the ones who can warn us away from a bad investment, because they know books, they know publishing, and they read, copiously, like us.

As you can see, I have emotional bonds with my favorite book stores; they give me satisfaction they give me comfort; they make me feel cozy; they make me feel like I am loved because I'm surrounded by books. It is a strange disease that I have but it is all mine.

 

On Books-Confessions of a Bookstore Snob Part 1: The Everything-to-Everyone Bookstore.

When I was a child, my family was struggling financially, as any young family would be. We lived in Taiwan and my parents learned to live frugally. I had my share of toys as I was growing up, not as much as some other kids but I never felt the sting of not having things. My parents were always up front saying no when I asked for things that were beyond the family budget.

Yet the one thing that I could ask for and was never denied is books. My dad was a connoisseur of the used book stands in Taipei, he was well known amongst the stall owners. At that time, Taiwan had not started honoring the international copyright laws, so pirated editions of English language books filled the book stalls. He was particularly keen on acquiring inexpensive pirated editions of English language textbooks in mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering. We always spent Saturday afternoons together, our bonding time, and time for my mom to take a break from me, the only child. We would stroll up and down the stalls of books that populated a specific section of the marketplace in Taipei where all the booksellers congregated, taking our time browsing for treasured finds. Even though I did not know how to read at that time, I enjoyed that time immensely, partly because I spent time with my dad, who worked 8-5 every weekday and half a day on Saturday. This was the germination of my book habit.

Our ritual did not stop when we moved to Honduras. We would often go to the only English language bookstore in Tegucigalpa and spend time going through the store carefully. I was preoccupied with the comics: Archie, Classics Illustrated, Peanuts, Doonesbury, etc. When we moved to Colorado, I had a yen for my own books and I would often buy books with my allowance; of course if I didn’t have enough money to feed my habit, I would always ask, and I would get what I wanted most of the time.

Some might ask at this point: why not take advantage of the libraries? This is where part of the snobbery comes into play. The school libraries were fine, the public libraries were fine, but I had a problem with reading on a schedule, I wanted to read on my schedule, having to renew my books every two weeks was an annoyance that rankled. One can say that this is part of having privilege.

On a subconscious level, this could be my nascent attempts to attain Umberto Eco’s anti-library: a large collection of references at my fingertips so that I can look up pertinent knowledge as the fancy tickled me, my own personal Google, before there was a Google. I did use the library as I progressed through my schooling, doing research for various papers that was assigned to me and often researching topics that were then unknown to me, but I accrued my own library according to my interests through the years.

As I made my way through college and gradual school, my reading interest became much more catholic and the depths of my desire for reading material grew. As an engineering gradual student, I was always on the lookout for technical books. I did not, however, limit my purchases to just technical books. I went through various reading phases: a personal feeling of inadequacy regarding my lack of grounding in literature drove me to read the books on the New York Times fiction best sellers list; my own ego, presumptuousness, and arrogance drove me to buy books that I thought I should be reading as a member of the intelligentsia; and my exaggerated pretensions of grandiosity drove me to buy books that I perceived society expected me to read. I have since given up most of those impulses because of all the less than satisfying books that I had waded through. Now I read whatever piques my interest.

My expertise in bookstores, if you can call it that, came from my experience frequenting bookstores in my life. I frequented bookstores where I lived and in towns where my travels had taken me. In my later professional life, I was afforded the perk of travelling around the country for work, so I always planned some free time to visit bookstores in whichever city I happened to be. I would map out the bookstores in an unfamiliar city ahead of arriving so that I did not waste any time trying to figure out the lay of the land. I consulted the internet, as well as fellow travelers in this bookstore barnstorming adventures. My Bookstores (Rice 2012) is an invaluable book that I read repeatedly, hoping that one day I could hit all the stores listed. I am not even close to completing that bucket list.

I call the chain big box store for books the everything-to-everyone bookstores, some are more successful at their raison d’etre than others. They reside in strip malls or large commercial spaces, vying for space with the boutiques and the shoe stores. They serve people who are looking for a quick escape from the shopping routine of their spouses or as a convenience store for the generic literary needs. These bookstores have massive sections set aside for stationary supplies, journals, greeting cards, wrapping papers, and various other literary accoutrements.  The book selection at these book megamarts are rarely inspired, they sell what they think the  general public wants to buy. The store employees have very little say in the selection, most of the stock comes from a general warehouse that is filled titles determined by corporate buyers. Understandably, books that reflect the regional preferences or character are nonexistent.

B. Dalton’s was the chain that I grew up with because there was one of those in the mall close to where I lived. The mall is also strategically placed between our house and the high school I attended; an after-school outing to B. Dalton’s was often added on to my trip home. It holds the distinction of existing as a contradictory space and time: having a massive selection in stock and yet never having anything that is unique nor breathtaking, strong on the Harlequin romances and inspirational books that appealed to the suburban readers, but not to any other possible clientele. Their stocks are chock full of books that other bookstores also carry and rarely, if ever did they have something that was unique or distinctive. These same stocks will inevitably end up on the discount tables at the local  big box stores after sitting unsold for months if not years at B. Daltons. I was, however, both shocked and amazed that I found Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not A Christian there. First, I never thought that they would even consider stocking a title like this; second, I didn’t think anyone in the small suburb of Denver, outside of yours truly, would look for a title like that; third, I didn’t think the local clergy in the small suburb of Denver would allow such a title, maybe they didn’t know or perhaps there was a rebel book buyer throwing his weight around. Truth be told, I single handedly helped keep stores like that in business during my high school years.

There are also the two giants that co-existed for a long time: Borders and Barnes and Nobles. Border’s started out life in the college town of Ann Arbor, MI, I visited the mothership many times and it was very impressive. The selection is sometimes eclectic as well as being all things to all people, a difficult feat to accomplish. The vibe was very much of a cool college town bookstore, where the students aspiring to be the cool kids congregated to learn how to act as the future bookstore dwelling hipsters and to develop their look of faux gravitas. Of course, these same people  will mostly eschew poor Border’s when they become gradual students and congregate at the local independent bookstores. They will then knowledgeably disparage the likes of Border’s.

Border’s also was the first chain store that was dawdler friendly, having a reasonable coffee shop with agreeable pastries and selling Seattle’s Best coffee. I quite enjoyed it, even though Starbuck’s bought them out. Although I can never forgive Border’s for destroying my favorite independent bookstore in St. Louis.

Barnes and Nobles (B&N) is still alive today, even after Amazon had destroyed most of the brick and mortar bookstores around the country, like Border’s. Their resilience does say something about them; persistence is admirable. B&N has always been the staid, teetotaling stick-in-the-mud relative kind of bookstore. This chain was never interested in providing the reading junkies with their fix of ample choice, or inspiring the light reading clientele to read more interesting and challenging books, they were very happy to be as bland and uninteresting as possible so that they do not threaten the status quo. The layout and décor of the neighborhood B&N gave off the unwelcoming vibe to me, I rarely spend much time there to browse. One trip through the aisles told me most of what I wanted to know. They usually have a coffee shop, many times they are Starbuck’s. I will dawdle there over overpriced coffee and pastry while I plowed through a sack of books that I bring into the place; with headphones on, because their muzak are as generic as their book selection, as I focused on enjoying my reading experience despite my location.

Here Dayton, there is a bookstore named Books & Co, it is a chain, but a chain that was unfamiliar to me. It is housed in a large and impressive looking building in a shopping center that was deliberately designed to look like a charming European village with all the standard cliches filling up the “village”. I was hopeful when I moved to town and learned of its presence. I was sorely disappointed. This is a bookstore that had all the potential of a great bookstore, but mostly disappoints. The store is huge but filled with books that is available anywhere and everywhere else, there was no distinguishing character ethos to the bookstore. Their religious book section exceptionally large and full of different titles. My thinking here is that if they can put forth a more than pedestrian effort on one section of the bookstore, why not put forth a similar effort to building a few of the other genres? They instead filled their massive space with more calendars that they can ever sell, discount books that are discount books for a self-evident reason, and once again, average generic books that the average generic corporate book buyers believe the average generic readers will throw their money at.

Waterstones is the British equivalent of B&N, except they are a bit better in my opinion, perhaps I succumbed to my Anglophilic tendencies, or it might be that I was in the UK whenever I visited a Waterstones, which made me that much more agreeable. There is something to be said about the feel of a Waterstones that clearly made them salient in my mind, a sense of calm amidst the hustle bustle of the British streets. Even their bookstalls in airports are very inviting and gives the traveler an oasis in the sensory overload that is the average airport. Perhaps it was because I saw books that I had not seen nor was I acquainted with filling the front tables of the Waterstones, but I was always suitably impressed. Rest assured however, that I was not blinded to the fact that Waterstone’s was more similar to B&N and Border’s than it was to my favorite independents, it was just that the vibe in Waterstone’s was distinctly British and not American, and that difference attracted me, even though the primary and driving fundamentals of the stores were the same: make lots of money and cater to the least common denominator.

The irony here is that Waterstones parent company has acquired B&N in mid-2019, and the Waterstones’ CEO, James Daunt is now the new CEO of B&N. I certainly hope that he can revive B&N as he had Waterstones. I wish him well.

The irony of the everything-to-everyone chain bookstores existence is that while they had forced the shuttering of many independent books stores around the country, Amazon ultimately forced the big box everything-to-everyone stores to shutter their doors. In a surprising twist of fate the independents have shown signs of renewed life and are flourishing in their own way and in their own space. Perhaps it is because they were competing with the everything for everyone stores that made the small independents resilient and gird themselves to compete, I am not a bookseller so I would not know, but I welcome the return of the small independent, even though I know the 800 lb gorilla that is Amazon is always around the corner.

Works Cited

Rice, Ronald. My Bookstore: Writer's Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Ltd., 2012.

Next: Confessions of a Bookstore Snob Part 2: The Bibliophiles Dream

On Books-Why Did I Stop Reading This Book?

The beauty of having an antilibrary, is that you will always have the books that you have stopped reading available to you to reconsider your decision. The concept of the antilibrary came from Umberto Eco the symbiotics scholar, as well as the author of the Name of the Rose and various other novels. He is well known for having a library of over 30,000 volumes.

Walk through Umberto Eco's Library

The antilibrary is a personal library consisting of far more books that has not been read than books that has been read. It is a point of pride and it is also a point of pragmatism.  The point of pride comes from the owner’s ability to distinguish between the reality that there is more knowledge that the owner does NOT know, because there are books that they have not read, than there are knowledge that owner does know. The point of pragmatism comes from the knowledge that the reader has an abundance of references available at their disposal to indulge their curiosity whenever they wish, even when they are not on the world wide web. Most people do not have antilibraries of course, because the habit can be expensive, the books take up a lot of space, and partly because many people are under the delusion that showing the extent of their knowledge is more important and impressive than showing the extent of their ignorance.

I am proud that I have an antilibrary, not to the extent of Eco, but I do have a collection of books that I am proud of; the majority of the books I own I have not finished reading, although I have started reading them at least once. There was a time that I felt guilty about the untapped investments in paper, but I stopped feeling guilty when I realized that I would one day go back to read the books. Ideally, I thought that I should read every new book that I bought; the reality, of course, is that I buy more books than I can read at one time, and I never not buy books because I have unread books on my shelves;  those books that I have not read accumulates exponentially with each visit to the bookstore or, with each visit to a bookstore website.

This essay is about those books that I have left behind but have returned to after a hiatus to finish and the reason for these respites from those books.

I usually give up on a book because it  just did not hold my interest, I found the slog of reading discouraging, I became easily distracted as I am reading, I disliked the writing, or I found the subject matter not as engrossing as I had imagined. There are many books that I had given up reading, as my basement full of books will attest. There are times, quite often actually, that I will find a treasure trove of unread books as I am rummaging through my basement. I will pause in my search for whatever it was that I was searching and think: “I forgot I had that”, or “that sounds interesting”.  It is like opening presents on Christmas morning, there are as many presents as there are forgotten books.

After the initial delight of discovery, I would inevitably ponder the reasons for abandoning a book. I would search my memory for the reason: was it the writing? Was it the subject? Was it the organization? What was the reason for my abandoning a book that had once held my interest long enough to pay for it, invest time and energy in initially devouring it?

One book that I can recall which followed that fate is a book that had become one of my favorites. The  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, a title that was thrown around in late night college dorm room bull sessions for many decades. I have started that book numerous times and never got traction with the story. The beginning was rather slow, and the narrative really did not gain momentum for many pages. The characters were not interesting, and the pace of the initial pages were hardly engrossing. I had heard once that one needs to give a book 50 to 100 pages, if one still cannot get any traction then it is time to stop reading. I am not sure I agree with that assessment, but I soldiered through the beginning a few times and left it alone for extended periods of time. The last time I started the book, I felt like I flew through the initial pages, as the words had become familiar since I had read them so many times previously, that momentum carried me to the point where Pirsig introduced Phaedrus, and that was when I got hooked. As it became clear that when Pirsig spoke of Phaedrus, he was speaking of himself, that was when the book opened for me, as the reading experience became an exercise in mind expansion, without the chemical aids.  It is still one of my favorite books.

Another book that is on my pantheon of great books but did not hold my interest in my first few forays into its pages was Magister Ludi by Herman Hesse, it is also known as The Glass Bead Game. This book goes back to my callow youth, Hermann Hesse was the author that adolescent boys read because it was deep and ostentatiously cerebral. We were all trying to out deep each other so Hesse was the means to do it. I had started the Magister Ludi a few times without the story grabbing my attention, the fact that it was in a mythical Germanic setting that did not have any indication of identifiable time frame made  it intriguing but also confusing. I had devoured Siddartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and Steppenwolf in short order, but that fact  made no difference in my ability to be interested.  I made numerous attempts without any success.  It was not until I left the book alone for a number of years before returning to it that I was able to not only finish the book but be completely absorbed into the cloistered intellectual world of Castalia. I  eventually  reread this book a few times because it made such an impact on me.

So, what was the problem the first few times? Was it the writing? Was it the subject? Was it the organization of the narrative?

It was none of those things.

The truth of the matter is that I was not ready to read those books, my maturity level, my intellectual depth, my ability to decipher, analyze, and integrate all that was presented to my eyes by the author were not developed enough to appreciate the work. It was not that the book was not good enough to appeal to my mind, it was that my mind was not good enough to respond to the appeal. My maturity,  intellectual and emotional maturity, was not ready to understand what the author was trying to tell me.

As we age, we will, I hope, be able to integrate all of our life experiences and knowledge into our continuously evolving intellect; and as our intellect evolve, we should be able to understand ever more complex concepts in addition to be growing emotionally to be more accepting of ideas that were once out of the ordinary, foreign, and perhaps even repulsive to our provincial mindsets. The ability to return to the books that had stopped us in our tracks is certainly a sign that our opinions and intellectual depth are growing and evolving along with our life experiences.

I now look at my cluttered basement with a newfound appreciation. The boxes of unread books become the object of my attention just as the shelves of the finest bookstores without having to leave the house. I have also gained an appreciation for my young and callow self for having the foresight, taste, and judgement to have bought these books in the first place, well before he was able to appreciate the richness of his choices.

This idea is not new, The New York Times Sunday Book Review dedicates a column to authors’ reading habits, the By the Book column. One of the questions is: which book should not be read until after the reader turns 40. It is new to me however, since I had not thought about it until recently.

Unfortunately, not all books fall into this category, I find that my younger choices in books are a mixed bag. I had a tendency to follow the trend and I bought many books that had not withstood the test of time, but that too is a lesson itself.

Ultimately, the understanding that I just was not ready for the book has taken the guilt, impatience, and self-loathing out of my emotional response to seeing all those books in my basement and made me achieve equanimity, at least in that regard.