Demise of the bookstore...

...about three weeks ago, the daughter and I were in Borders at Macarthur Square. We went up to the art section, up the back on the second floor and found a book of 50 wonders of the world. It was a very large book, they wanted well over $100 for it. So we sat on the floor and flipped through the pages. Talking and commenting about the pictures and places; we would never visit most places, but through this lovely book we could appreciate them. It took us around an hour of being together looking through the book. It was really lovely to be able to do that.

So in many ways I am sorry to see the demise of bookshops. I imagine Borders online store may stay open and probably viable.

I bought myself a basic Kobo to download and read books on. I cannot stop reading just because I can no longer afford books - they were getting far to pricey, even for paperbacks. And that is probably a main reason for them going out of business. There are millions of books on line that you can download for free many of which are out of print now. But freebies are not what makes profit for shareholders or pays wages to sales staff.

I feel very bad for these sales staff that are loosing their jobs. Some of them are very bookwormy and very knowledgeable about books and authors, so I will miss my interactions with them as well. I wish all of them luck in getting new jobs in the very near future.

Free books also do not pay authors and if authors cannot make a living, they will not write. Unlike music, which you can create for the sheer joy of it and post it on Youtube, writing books is about creating worlds for people to inhabit in their imaginations. Taking that away from our culture is going to take away a great creative outlet for millions and leave our culture very much the poorer. Diminishing our culture seems to have become a way of life with the internet and the ubiquitous computer.

I will continue to pay for good books when I can, even if it just a download for my Kobo. I will avail myself of good free books and hopefully someone will find a way to make this less diminishing for our culture.