Books Unlimited ????

[frogus]

Originally posted by Minerva
My supervisor once went into Blackwells in Oxford, just after it was taken over by Waterstones, one of the major book chains in UK. She was so dissappointed what the shop turned into since, so she approached a shop keeper and said, "I congraturate you for the work you've done here; This became nothing of significant as it had been". The lady was fuming and turned red, she told me. My supervisor is in her late 60s and looks like just another old lady, but obviously she is not.

Nuah ha! I still have Blackwells, Blackwells will never die, Blackwells is great.

@Minerva - I may be mistaken, but I am almost certain that Blackwells has not been taken over by Waterstones. A much smaller and less interesting bookshop called Dillons was taken over by Waterstones about 6 years ago IIRC - if your supervisor visited Waterstones, she experienced a great dissapointment which could have been rectified by a short walk down the road to Blackwells...
If it was Blackwells that she visited, she was uneccesarily unhappy. The shop has a (shamefully Multinational and much despised) cafe on the premises now, which has never been there before, but this is (I guess) just what one has to do in order to keep a bookshop going nowadays, competing with BORDERS *spit* and Dillons.

However, Blackwells still has immense credibility. As distinguishes it from other towns, Oxford is full of students, who simply have to buy and read a lot of books, all the time. Also, the population of Oxford is suffused with old-grads , who constitute a much greater market for old, obscure and rare books. (An entire floor is dedicated to second-hand books for collectors etc.) For this reason, while no other chain is willing to stock the books required by students and leisurely academics, Blaxkwells has a niche there which cannot be destroyed, until the University goes.

But here is a question - Who has a local general books shop that does not conatin a cafe?

[Minerva]

@frogus: It could be just that particular shop of the Blackwells in Oxford. I do remember visiting one when I first came this country, and about 5 years later, I walked into the same shop (still it's called Blackwells, though) and dissappointed. It's certainly not Dillons we were talking about.

[dragon wench]

Wow! This is one of the things I really appreciate about SYM... there are not too many online, gaming-inspired forums wherein a thread like this would get as much response. So, thank you

Reading everyone's replies has made me nostagic for some of the bookstores I have visited and loved..... sadly, none are really in Vancouver. The possible exception to this is Banyan Books, it is actually within walking distance of my home. Their space is really nice...very cozy.... and they have an amazing collection of good (as opposed to "flakey") metaphysical material.... The difficulty, though, is that if I want to browse through something different it becomes far more difficult..*sigh*

Two of the most atmospheric and generally really excellent bookstores I have visited have been in the US. One is actually very well known due to its close historical association with the original Beatnik movement... I am of course talking about "City Lights" in San Francisco. It is also conveniently close to Vesuvio's...one of the most interesting watering holes I have ever been in

Another wonderful bookstore is in Seattle... called Elliot Bay books. It has hardwood floors, brick walls and a lot of light. The staff I have encountered have all been very knowledgeable... and they possess a truly extensive collection of both new and used titles. It is wonderful to walk in and ask for say... EP Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class or Emile Zola's Germinal and not be met with a puzzled stare. As others have pointed out, this is another huge problem with commercialised bookstores, not only are their collections woefully mainstream... their staff rely on computers in order to answer any question... They are retail workers no different to those employed somewhere like Walmart... *shudder* Of course..these individuals are just trying to survive in our continually changing economy. So they, like the small bookstore owners themselves, have been swept up in a tide which they are often unable to counter.

Elliot Bay has another feature which I really like....
In their basement they have their own small cafe which serves coffee, soup, 'homemade' bread etc. What is really neat is that the walls of the cafe are lined with books that can be picked up and browsed through while people replenish their blood sugar levels after an energetic few hours of having been 'lost' in the upper levels.

@Frogus, I really don't like to see multinational coffee shops, such as Starbuck's, invading bookstores, but the place I mention above has a very nice feel to it.

[Gwalchmai]

Where I grew up in Colorado, a couple of local bookstores sort of trumped the big chain stores by riding that wave of department-store-sized, massive inventoried kind of store before any of the chain stores moved in. They still claim to be local stores, and they still carry a more unusual stock, but with four floors of books, they are only slightly better. They even have cafes and carry calendars!

No, the local bookstores where you get the feel for the preciousness of books are now exclusively rare and used bookstores. Unfortunatley, these rare bookstores will often cut the plates out of old books to frame them and sell separately - this kind of destruction of a book is horrible, IMO.

[frogus]

Originally posted by dragon wench
Elliot Bay has another feature which I really like....
In their basement they have their own small cafe which serves coffee, soup, 'homemade' bread etc. What is really neat is that the walls of the cafe are lined with books that can be picked up and browsed through while people replenish their blood sugar levels after an energetic few hours of having been 'lost' in the upper levels.

@Frogus, I really don't like to see multinational coffee shops, such as Starbuck's, invading bookstores, but the place I mention above has a very nice feel to it.

It seems like we, as a planetary class, are just suckers for coffee.

I hate it when 'environments', or worse 'moods', and even, Heaven forbid! 'Feels' try and integrate themselves into my multimedia interactive book-getting experience...

Get out of my pockets, swine!

If you want to sell me books, then for christ's sake sell me books, and do not try to cajole me into loafing, unwinding, getting away from it all or drinking your bastard coffee....

[RandomThug]

Horrific spam to get my name nine times on the list.

[dragon wench]

Originally posted by frogus
It seems like we, as a planetary class, are just suckers for coffee.

I hate it when 'environments', or worse 'moods', and even, Heaven forbid! 'Feels' try and integrate themselves into my multimedia interactive book-getting experience...

Get out of my pockets, swine!

If you want to sell me books, then for christ's sake sell me books, and do not try to cajole me into loafing, unwinding, getting away from it all or drinking your bastard coffee....

lol! Feeling fiesty today aren't we

As I outlined above I have no problem at all with independent bookstores operating a cafe on the premises. They are fusing two notions that have been synonomous since at least the 1800s, if not earlier... that of exchanging ideas and drinking coffee. During the nineteenth century this concept was embodied in the Coffee House... often a hotbed of debate and enquiry.

However, I find the inclusion of multinational coffee shops in chain bookstores to be a sad parody of an old tradition. Such places never encourage lingering, nor do they especially encourage conversation or discussion. They are the McDonald's of the coffee world.

[Yshania]

Heh! there is nothing wrong with a double espresso or two to aid studying

I have only ever bought one book online, and that was because I had an Amazon voucher Otherwise I spend way too many hours in bookshops...LOL! I read everything and put it back, then every third or fourth visit buy a couple of books.

[Scayde]

Originally posted by frogus
It seems like we, as a planetary class, are just suckers for coffee.

I hate it when 'environments', or worse 'moods', and even, Heaven forbid! 'Feels' try and integrate themselves into my multimedia interactive book-getting experience...

Get out of my pockets, swine!

If you want to sell me books, then for christ's sake sell me books, and do not try to cajole me into loafing, unwinding, getting away from it all or drinking your bastard coffee....

Well I supose I will reveal my plebeian status when I admit that I enjoy a capacino at *cough* Starbucks *cough* while I shop for my next purchase.

As I said earlier, the large chains have closed down all but one of the small shops in town. While I do miss them terribly, I must shoulder some of the responsibility for their demise. If I, and the rest of the shoppers where I live, had been willing to pay a bit more, wait for a book to arive if not in stock, not enjoyed drinking the flavored coffees while shopping, and been satisfied to go without the 40% discount shelves, a few of the old shops might still be around. *Sigh*

Be careful what we ask for, we just might get it