- Messages
- 10,933
- Location
- My mother's basement
I have a couple of sets of friends who once owned bricks-and-mortar used (mostly, but some new stock) bookstores on Capitol Hill in Seattle. One friend had a total of three stores at one time, but that's going back more than 20 years. She's now down to one struggling survivor. The other friends went online-only several years ago. Their business had been a money maker pretty much from the start, but a decade or so of providing employment to people who made more off the operation than they did, with little sign that would improve, prompted their shift to online-only sales.
What I most miss about such shops is stumbling across volumes I wouldn't have encountered, nor would have thought myself interested in, if not for my browsings there. You go in looking for one thing and come out with some very different thing. Or two.
Among the reasons I hate moving (I hope to never do it again) is moving my books. No, I don't wish to be rid of them, even if it is indeed likely that I will never again open most of them. There is a method to my arrangement of them, which makes sense to me if nobody else. A person who thought she was being helpful during one move took it upon herself to arrange the books BY SIZE! That'll never happen again.
What I most miss about such shops is stumbling across volumes I wouldn't have encountered, nor would have thought myself interested in, if not for my browsings there. You go in looking for one thing and come out with some very different thing. Or two.
Among the reasons I hate moving (I hope to never do it again) is moving my books. No, I don't wish to be rid of them, even if it is indeed likely that I will never again open most of them. There is a method to my arrangement of them, which makes sense to me if nobody else. A person who thought she was being helpful during one move took it upon herself to arrange the books BY SIZE! That'll never happen again.
Last edited: