As a former owner of a bookstore I was wondering if anyone else noticed what a shabby and worn out bunch of books was on the store shelves. The set designers must have just gotten some old books without any thought to the kind and quality of books you would need to sustain a viable bookstore.
Just a minor thing to be sure, but I wish they would have made more of an effort to give the store some real sellable books.
I've never owned a bookstore, but in the past 45 years I've spent countless hours in them and had also noticed how poor the store's stock looked. And as someone who loves and still searches out local bookstores, just reading the phrase "former owner of a bookstore" was saddening. It would be great to learn that you'd just retired, and not that your shop went the way so many have.
shareYes, my husband and I retired from running a brick and mortar store, though we do still keep our hand in selling books online. Our daughter is a librarian. Books still have the siren lure they always did.
shareThat they do, although since our daughters left the nest and we downsized, I'm more circumspect in what I buy -- bookshelf space is an issue. I do buy an occasional book online if I can't find it here in Houston; do you specialize in any particular genre?
shareNo, and most of the books we sell now are for a few local libraries as fundraisers for them. It includes ex-library copies and donated books. Nothing to exhalt in but a small steady source of income for libraries that are feeling the crunch of budget cuts.
I have a strict rule for my own downsized collection. Buy one - donate one. That way I won't have the groaning beams I had in my previous house. I also have a e-reader (a gift from my daughter) and that is a big space saver for books I would only read once.
Books have been my constant companions for my whole life, I imagine you feel the same way about them. It's good to meet a fellow "bookie".
What are you reading? I'm reading a book about Lincoln and two mysteries, Plum Island and something else I can't recall right now. I'm also listening to a Neville Shute book on cassette I got from the library. It's read by Robin Bailey, my favorite reader.
It's very hard for me to give up a book. For a while back in the late '80s I did manage to thin the herd by taking a few hundred to a local used bookstore that took titles in trade; that worked well until we came back from vacation and discovered the store empty and dark. So now I just take a load to our church's annual yard sale. Even that is like pulling teeth, though.
What am I reading? I usually have two or three books going at once, picking up whichever is lying next to where I sit down. Just finished memoirs by Richard Russo and Ivan Doig, and am about two-thirds of the way through Annie Proulx's "Bird Cloud," her account of building a house on the edge of a nature preserve in Wyoming. (Just reading about those brutal winters makes me thankful for our mild weather down here in Southeast Texas.) Before that I was on a short-story binge, revisiting all three volumes of Proulx's Wyoming stories (skipping "Brokeback Mountain," as once through that was enough), collections of John O'Hara and Irwin Shaw's short works, and Russo's "The Whore's Child" -- not as salacious as the title might lead you to believe. I usually revisit at least one Dickens novel in the winter, but haven't settled on which it will be; leaning toward "Pickwick Papers."
No reading today, except for your note online. Trying to get my Christmas shopping done, and do believe it's all in hand except for the wrapping.
Hope your holidays go well.
"Hope your holidays go well."
You too, good reading to you!
(p.s. A word of warning to a fellow reader.. I began playing "Words With Friends" and am now hooked on the online scrabble type game. It has cut into my reading time!)
Several newsroom colleagues, and former co-workers now at newspapers in other cities, have tried to lure me into that web. As I understand it, though, it's something to be played on Facebook, and I deactivated my account on there a couple years ago. The main reason was because it had begun to take up way too much time -- something that, at age 63, I find increasingly precious and that I am loath to waste. I appreciate the warning.
shareFrom the 1st movie, WHEN she inhierited the store-it was stated by the elderly gengleman who helped there (& lived in the backroom) all the books were 1st editions ever written by the mystery writers. That may answer as to "why" all the books look old & in sad-shape. Not a case of 'crappy stock/selection. And the books ARE all mystery. Stated also in the 1st movie,when she first walked into the shop, saw/met Philbie (IF memory serves me correctly(??)) & took a good look about.
shareAll the books were originals BY the authours (FIRST EDITIONS ONLY), as well as only MYSTERIES. It was stated in the first movie by the new owner & the elderly man who lives in the back-room. Philbie(??). Maybe THAT'S why the 'stock' looked unappealing to you.
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