Bookstores

Two more independent bookstores in Maine have closed. If books weren't such a sacred thing, this wouldn't be news. Hardware stores, pharmacies, groceries all are closed out regularly by the various sons of Sam but don't have the cachet to get much press.

I'm terribly conflicted about bookstores. The big ones slay you with abundance and desire and frustration, the little ones with charm and personality and passion. Yet I hardly ever patronize them, of any size. It's heretical, I know, for someone who reads a couple of books a week. I tell myself that books aren't necessarily to be owned, displayed proudly on a shelf. They're to be read, absorbed, passed on. They become part of you. Yes, their physicality is very important; it makes the reader single-minded, undistracted by pixels and websites and advertisements. It's also a commitment to that author, a belief in the word make flesh. Now, if libraries ceased to exist, I'd be in big trouble.

The popular view is that the big stores have narrowed readership to best-sellers. But the sheer numbers of books on their shelves must argue for the opposite. Certainly, Amazon can claim to provide readers to books that otherwise would have sunk into oblivion. True, you don't get the feeling that Mr. Borders and Mr. Barnes actually love books. But to my mind, provision is the thing. Reading is an intensely personal experience that doesn't translate well to talk, the popularity of book clubs notwithstanding. But then I mostly read books long off the best-seller lists. Give me an astute and inspirational reader like Katherine Powers to point me in new directions, not someone tending discount tables.

These are amazing times for readers. Books will last, even as the warehouses that protect them change so rapidly.