When I was a child, there weren't many bookstores where I lived. People then -- 1960s, 1970s -- bewailed the demise of literacy, and thence the demise of bookstores.
But now in 2007, there are lots of wonderful bookstores: think Borders, Barnes and Nobles, among many others. Not to mention such on-line sellers as Amazon.
Paradoxically, used bookstores are dying. Some are selling, and will, I suspect be different after they are sold. I'm specifically think of The Bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC, where I have spent many a pleasant hour, and many a dollar. The store is being sold, owing to the retirement of the owners. I wish them well. They have done a fine job. But I am not a very good customer any more. I don't go very often, and I suspect I'm like many folks: I do virtually (sic) all of my shopping on-line. It's become easy to find the old books I'm looking for in Amazon or other such, and I just don't care to spend much time browsing the shelves. Not to mention that Google and others are scanning in huge numbers of out-of-print, out-of-copyright books.
Will there be brick-and-mortar used bookstores a hundred years from now? 10 years from now? I hope so. But I wonder about their future. But I am thankful that it's easy to get the theology books I want, far easier, and far less expensively than even 20 years ago.
Ambience. That's what you don't have sitting at the computer terminal. There is nothing like the ambience in an old musty bookstore with musty old books.
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