It’s tough to keep smiling when you’re a bookseller. You see the articles every week:
1) “Book Business in Decline”
2) “People Reading Less”
3) “Young People Prefer Electronic Gadgets to Books”
4) “It’s All Going Digital” (Gutenberg, make way for Steve Jobs)
Etc. Scary stuff! Now, in my opinion, each one of these dire pronouncements is overstated (numbers two and three) or ultimately false (numbers one and four, and you can quote me—or quote Steve Riggio).
But it is certainly true that the book business is tough, and getting tougher. Everyone wants a piece of the action. Wal-Mart and Costco use books as loss leaders, so you’ll think everything in their store is cheap. Supermarkets and gas stations sell Harry Potter. The distinction between new and used is becoming blurred on the Internet. All your favorite blogs link to Amazon to get those kickbacks.
What’s to become of the traditional bookstore? There’s more and more pressure on a bookstore’s traffic, its margins, and its sales, and it has to be more nimble than ever to survive.
By now many you have seen the news that Borders is having financial difficulties. They’ve been losing money, they have too much debt, and they’re facing a cash crunch—all of which the stock market has punished them for severely. They’ve been forced to explore a sale of the company, and they’ll have to trim inventory and stores significantly to get healthy again.
How does this involve you, the casual reader? The committed reader? Well, you just have to choose where you’re going to shop, and let natural selection do the rest. It’s a jungle out there, and not everyone will survive. It’s up to you. Every dollar you spend is a vote for who will make it, especially as the country teeters on the brink of recession.
You can sit at home and click your mouse, and wonder why so many storefronts in your city are empty and why your taxes are so much higher. (Short answer: because you sent all your money out of state.) You can buy the latest Grisham at Target, and wonder later why bookstores aren’t around to host that fundraising book fair your group is planning. You can run out to Wal-Mart and get Eat Pray Love, but miss the opportunity to see six other great travel memoirs that aren't bestsellers. You can click your mouse and have a book on global warming shipped to you in a little package—making your own carbon footprint a lot worse.
Or you can think about where you have a real relationship with a real bookseller, and reward those companies accordingly. Did someone at Borders help put the right kind of manga in your teenager’s hands? Did someone at Gibson’s turn you on to a new novelist? The publishing industry is a marvelous, complex universe, and traditional bookstores are its representatives in your town--do you want real life, or a virtual life? Real bookstores, or just "places where books are sold"?
With all the loyalty programs and sales events we traditional bookstores have, we’re competitive on price, and we’re better at what makes a bookstore a real bookstore—not just its stock, but its people.
I’m biased, so of course I would argue that you should support our independent bookstore. That argument is for another day. My point today is, support real bookstores. Or some dire predictions may come true.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Book clubs (open thread)
Do you belong to a book club? If you do, which books have been your favorites? And which books are you very, very sorry that your club read at all?
I'll kick off the conversation with a memory of the Gibson's book club--years ago, we read Time and Tide, a novel by Edna O'Brien which is now mercifully out of print. The publisher claimed that it was "a poignant, heart-felt exploration of one woman's struggle to be true to herself yet hold on to the things dearest to her... Nell Steadman, an innocent "country girl" desperate to gain experience in whatever manner possible, escapes from her overbearing family into an equally stifling marriage ... Nell must fight for her freedom and custody of her children."
I just couldn't stand it. The prose was overblown and pretentious, the situations were cliched--it was so obviously an attempt at an Important Novel, but to me it was like fingernails down a blackboard.
Anyone else?
I'll kick off the conversation with a memory of the Gibson's book club--years ago, we read Time and Tide, a novel by Edna O'Brien which is now mercifully out of print. The publisher claimed that it was "a poignant, heart-felt exploration of one woman's struggle to be true to herself yet hold on to the things dearest to her... Nell Steadman, an innocent "country girl" desperate to gain experience in whatever manner possible, escapes from her overbearing family into an equally stifling marriage ... Nell must fight for her freedom and custody of her children."
I just couldn't stand it. The prose was overblown and pretentious, the situations were cliched--it was so obviously an attempt at an Important Novel, but to me it was like fingernails down a blackboard.
Anyone else?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Spring Snow
No, not a weather report, just a title that comes to mind when I look out the window and realize, ruefully, that today is the first day of Spring.
Yukio Mishima was one of Japan's most gifted novelists. Spring Snow is the first novel in a tetralogy Mishima called Sea of Fertility. As the Christian Science Monitor said, "Mishima is like Stendhal in his precise psychological analyses, like Dostoevsky in his explorations of darkly destructive personalities." If writing can be delicate and muscular at the same time, that is Mishima.
I hope that I don't look out the window three months from now and think about a certain mystery novel, one of the best of 2006--by Rebecca Pawel--wait for it, here comes the punch line .... yes, it's Summer Snow.
Yukio Mishima was one of Japan's most gifted novelists. Spring Snow is the first novel in a tetralogy Mishima called Sea of Fertility. As the Christian Science Monitor said, "Mishima is like Stendhal in his precise psychological analyses, like Dostoevsky in his explorations of darkly destructive personalities." If writing can be delicate and muscular at the same time, that is Mishima.
I hope that I don't look out the window three months from now and think about a certain mystery novel, one of the best of 2006--by Rebecca Pawel--wait for it, here comes the punch line .... yes, it's Summer Snow.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Human Smoke, by Nicholson Baker
This is a deeply controversial book. World War II is ordinarily described as the Just War, the one war that trumps any pacifist arguments or philosophy. How could we have met the threat of dangerous warmongers like Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito without resorting to overwhelming force? But like all history, the standard version is interlarded with myth, and Baker goes back to primary sources to construct an alternate view. Human Smoke is essentially a pacifist history of World War II, and the heroes of that war—Churchill especially, but also FDR--do not come out with their halos intact. Only Gandhi and other pacifist figures such as Clarence Pickett come out with their halos freshly burnished, and as I was reading I imagined them blinking in the sunlight of unaccustomed popularity.
Nicholson Baker is known primarily as a meticulous, detail-obsessed novelist (Mezzanine and Vox are his best known books), and Human Smoke started out as a novel. But Baker realized that he couldn't write a novel about WWII unless he understood it, and he was mystified by the material that he was gathering; and so he decided, temporarily, to become a historian. He assembled a collage of episodes and quotations, in chronological order, to construct a narrative of the road to war, with special attention given to the 1930s.
Baker is very rarely present in his own book. He lets the episodes speak for themselves. In form, Human Smoke is reminiscent of Sven Lindqvist’s History of Bombing (which is now unfortunately out of print): a story emerges from the arrangement of episodes. The book begins with Alfred Nobel's prediction, in 1892, that advances in military technology might put an end to war itself, and ends on December 31, 1941, when most of the people who would die in World War II were still alive. Guest stars include W.H. Auden, Mussolini's son-in-law, Charles Lindbergh, Lord Halifax, Goebbels, Aldous Huxley--literally a cast of thousands.
The book has met both with critical acclaim (Mark Kurlansky in the LA Times) and critical scorn (William Grimes in the NY Times). There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of middle ground. Why not have a look at the book and decide for yourself? It's a staff pick at the front of the store.
While reading Human Smoke, a small nagging fear or premonition afflicted me, that 70 years hence, a book of this sort might be written about the decade we are living through now, just as this book was written about the 1930s. What avoidable catastrophe are we blundering towards today? What future ironist will indict us? And will we deserve the indictment?
Nicholson Baker is known primarily as a meticulous, detail-obsessed novelist (Mezzanine and Vox are his best known books), and Human Smoke started out as a novel. But Baker realized that he couldn't write a novel about WWII unless he understood it, and he was mystified by the material that he was gathering; and so he decided, temporarily, to become a historian. He assembled a collage of episodes and quotations, in chronological order, to construct a narrative of the road to war, with special attention given to the 1930s.
Baker is very rarely present in his own book. He lets the episodes speak for themselves. In form, Human Smoke is reminiscent of Sven Lindqvist’s History of Bombing (which is now unfortunately out of print): a story emerges from the arrangement of episodes. The book begins with Alfred Nobel's prediction, in 1892, that advances in military technology might put an end to war itself, and ends on December 31, 1941, when most of the people who would die in World War II were still alive. Guest stars include W.H. Auden, Mussolini's son-in-law, Charles Lindbergh, Lord Halifax, Goebbels, Aldous Huxley--literally a cast of thousands.
The book has met both with critical acclaim (Mark Kurlansky in the LA Times) and critical scorn (William Grimes in the NY Times). There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of middle ground. Why not have a look at the book and decide for yourself? It's a staff pick at the front of the store.
While reading Human Smoke, a small nagging fear or premonition afflicted me, that 70 years hence, a book of this sort might be written about the decade we are living through now, just as this book was written about the 1930s. What avoidable catastrophe are we blundering towards today? What future ironist will indict us? And will we deserve the indictment?
Friday, March 14, 2008
Baseball Season is Upon Us
And I couldn't be happier. Maybe the snow will melt before the All-Star Break.
While you're waiting for the first pitch, why not revisit some of the great baseball books, both new and old?
Not everyone is aware that Don Hall's Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball is back in print, or at least available as a print-on-demand title. We're keeping it in stock. It's an engaging portrait of one of baseball's great eccentrics, Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, written by one of our most esteemed men of letters.
A new classic is The Cheater's Guide to Baseball, by Derek Zumsteg. "Baseball’s been fraught with cheating since its inception and ... cheating has done much to shape the game we know," he writes. It's all about getting inside the head of your opponent and playing all the angles. This is a fascinating approach to the game we love.
The serious fan will not want to be without The SABR Baseball List & Record Book and the Baseball America Prospect Handbook. With these, you can win all arguments about the past and about the future. (Though, it must be said, most baseball arguments are not winnable.)
Looking for local color? Try Swinging for the Majors: Inside the New Hampshire Fisher Cats Championship Season, and Dem Little Bums: The Nashua Dodgers. Both are published by Plaidswede Press.
There have been more great novels published about baseball than about any other sport. My favorite is The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth, a brilliantly funny picaresque featuring a pitcher named Gil Gamesh and a league, the Patriot League, that has tragically been erased from our national memory. Other favorites by Kinsella, Malamud, and Howard Frank Mosher (Waiting for Teddy Williams) bear rereading once every couple of years.
And let's not forget The Last Best League, by Jim Collins--an affectionate look at the Cape Cod League; Teammates, by the late David Halbserstam, all about the enduring friendship between Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams; and memoirs by the two great Rogers of baseball writing (and no, I don't mean Clemens): Roger Kahn and Roger Angell.
The great thing about baseball is that it, like reading, occurs in a sort of Zen state, outside of time. Nothing and everything are happening simultaneously. That's why baseball and books go so well together. (And that's why you can read and watch a game at the same time--so come get a book!)
While you're waiting for the first pitch, why not revisit some of the great baseball books, both new and old?
Not everyone is aware that Don Hall's Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball is back in print, or at least available as a print-on-demand title. We're keeping it in stock. It's an engaging portrait of one of baseball's great eccentrics, Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, written by one of our most esteemed men of letters.
A new classic is The Cheater's Guide to Baseball, by Derek Zumsteg. "Baseball’s been fraught with cheating since its inception and ... cheating has done much to shape the game we know," he writes. It's all about getting inside the head of your opponent and playing all the angles. This is a fascinating approach to the game we love.
The serious fan will not want to be without The SABR Baseball List & Record Book and the Baseball America Prospect Handbook. With these, you can win all arguments about the past and about the future. (Though, it must be said, most baseball arguments are not winnable.)
Looking for local color? Try Swinging for the Majors: Inside the New Hampshire Fisher Cats Championship Season, and Dem Little Bums: The Nashua Dodgers. Both are published by Plaidswede Press.
There have been more great novels published about baseball than about any other sport. My favorite is The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth, a brilliantly funny picaresque featuring a pitcher named Gil Gamesh and a league, the Patriot League, that has tragically been erased from our national memory. Other favorites by Kinsella, Malamud, and Howard Frank Mosher (Waiting for Teddy Williams) bear rereading once every couple of years.
And let's not forget The Last Best League, by Jim Collins--an affectionate look at the Cape Cod League; Teammates, by the late David Halbserstam, all about the enduring friendship between Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams; and memoirs by the two great Rogers of baseball writing (and no, I don't mean Clemens): Roger Kahn and Roger Angell.
The great thing about baseball is that it, like reading, occurs in a sort of Zen state, outside of time. Nothing and everything are happening simultaneously. That's why baseball and books go so well together. (And that's why you can read and watch a game at the same time--so come get a book!)
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Our book club marches through March
Last night, the Gibson's book club discussed March, by Geraldine Brooks. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was Brooks's reimagining of the story of Mr March, the father who is absent throughout Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. It's a passionate story of the Civil War, written quite well in the rhythms and language of the period, with slavery and abolitionism, New England utopianism, and the gritty realities of the time painted with a firm and steady brush. Guest appearances by Thoreau, Emerson, and Hawthorne--and John Brown--thrill the reader.
And yet our group didn't really like it very much. "Paint by numbers," "stock characters," "improbable coincidences," "no growth in March or in Marmee," "saints and villains," "reads like YA," "reads like romance"--these were some of the critiques thrown around, even as we all protested that "we like it, but...." I guess the bottom line was that we thought it was well written but a superficial treatment of potentially great material, and that anything great in March was borrowed, not created.
Have any of your book groups read March? Well, I know you have, actually, since so many of you bought the book here. But would anyone care to comment, either to defend the book or to agree with us?
UPDATE (first)
A regular correspondent, whom I will only identify as Constant Reader, weighs in with the following: "Honestly, it was just an entertaining read that borrowed cleverly from a classic by adding to it and enriching the story - whenever a book wins a Pulitzer, we all have to figure out the justification for it, sometimes it is just good storytelling. Enjoy it!"
So there.
And yet our group didn't really like it very much. "Paint by numbers," "stock characters," "improbable coincidences," "no growth in March or in Marmee," "saints and villains," "reads like YA," "reads like romance"--these were some of the critiques thrown around, even as we all protested that "we like it, but...." I guess the bottom line was that we thought it was well written but a superficial treatment of potentially great material, and that anything great in March was borrowed, not created.
Have any of your book groups read March? Well, I know you have, actually, since so many of you bought the book here. But would anyone care to comment, either to defend the book or to agree with us?
UPDATE (first)
A regular correspondent, whom I will only identify as Constant Reader, weighs in with the following: "Honestly, it was just an entertaining read that borrowed cleverly from a classic by adding to it and enriching the story - whenever a book wins a Pulitzer, we all have to figure out the justification for it, sometimes it is just good storytelling. Enjoy it!"
So there.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Communities and Consequences
Today the Chamber of Commerce and CATCH hosted a talk by Peter Francese, author of Communities and Consequences: The Unbalancing of New Hampshire's Human Ecology, & What We Can Do About It. This is a very important new book--if you care about the state you live in, you should read it and talk it over with friends and family.
New Hampshire is graying, young people are leaving in droves, and communities are actively discouraging working class families (and families with children) from moving in. The economy will spiral downward without them, Francese argues, but New Hampshire towns persist in the illusion that taxes and even crime will rise if we let "them" live too close to us--even when they are us. All of New Hampshire's signature issues figure into this debate: taxes, local control, open space, land use, school budgets, and sprawl. And Francese handles this complex material effortlessly, and in just 100 pages.
He even has a picture of a Hopkinton town meeting on the cover. How can you resist?
New Hampshire is graying, young people are leaving in droves, and communities are actively discouraging working class families (and families with children) from moving in. The economy will spiral downward without them, Francese argues, but New Hampshire towns persist in the illusion that taxes and even crime will rise if we let "them" live too close to us--even when they are us. All of New Hampshire's signature issues figure into this debate: taxes, local control, open space, land use, school budgets, and sprawl. And Francese handles this complex material effortlessly, and in just 100 pages.
He even has a picture of a Hopkinton town meeting on the cover. How can you resist?
Our new blog
Welcome to the 21st century, Gibson's Bookstore! I'll be posting here as frequently as possible with book reviews, idle musings, and literary conversation starters. The emphasis will be on books both new and classic and on the literary scene in Concord, New Hampshire. I hope you'll join in.
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