A Rant With Which I Happen To Agree

Spotted on Shelf Awareness:

"Some tough bookstore love from Gawker's Hamilton Nolan: "You think the owner of that book store doesn't know what you're doing? Oh, they know exactly what you're doing. You say you 'love' books? You say you enjoy perusing the soothing aisles of a book store, so lovingly curated by a book store owner who spends his or her life ensuring that the very latest and most interesting book selections are there, presented for you in the most interesting possible way? You like that a lot? Yeah. So you can go home and order that shit online.... Book stores do not exist just to show off book covers so you know what you want to order from Amazon! You ungrateful bastards!"

I do love a good rant. Of course, my language is more temperate, but I do agree with the sentiments.

I am, I admit, slightly weird. (Only slightly, you understand.) Although I am very progressive politically, I do have a side of me that would be quite at home wearing a monocle and having a scotch at my Gentlemen's Club. Call it my "Inner Old Buffer," if you will.

Had I lived in a different time I would no doubt have spent my days bemoaning the passing of steam engines. I do remember mourning the change from the pound note to the pound coin. I was suspicious of microwaves, doubtful of computers, and swore I would never blog. Now look at me. My wife claims that she needs only to sow a seed in my mind and wait... perhaps wait a while... for the eventual harvest.

I love books. The smell of their pages, the heft of them, and the fact that they colonize my house. I do not own an e-reader, and probably won't until they stop publishing printed books the way they've stopped producing video tapes. And one thing I will mourn, with all my soul, is the coming extinction of the book store.

Practically everyday I see the obituaries written, venerable book stores closing their doors. I will miss spending a quiet hour or two in their sanctuaries, leafing through volumes whose titles or covers take my fancy. (Unlike the anonymous browser being excoriated above, I do not troop off to order from Amazon--though I am not so pure as to never visit a library in search of something I think I might love.)

Do you love book stores? Do you have a favorite?