I love bookstores. Big ones, small ones, used ones, new ones, chain-stores, independent stores (the few that are left). Oh, and libraries, too. Maybe it’s a geek thing, but the thought of being surrounded by the most poignant introspection, the most bellyaching humor, the most chair-gripping suspense, the most astute commentary, the most heart-wrenching romance (I think you get the idea) all in a single place populated by fellow bookworms is tantalizing. I could spend hours on end just browsing shelves and skimming magazines. In a bookstore, I feel at one and at home. I also feel a part of a greater community – one of fellow readers who, like me, get more out of a hardcover than from the remote. And for an activity as solitary in nature as reading, that community is a comforting thing. Enter Kindle. For those who haven’t heard about it, the Kindle is a new wireless reading device from Amazon. Users can browse and purchase most titles – including New York Times Bestsellers and new releases – for only $9.99. They also have access to a host of international newspapers, blogs and other media all on a little device weighing 10.3 ounces. The Kindle even has a display designed to appear and read like actual paper. Some critics are calling it the future of books. But what for bookstores? They’ve managed to hold their own against Amazon, but can they survive the Kindle?
The cover of last week’s New Yorker featured a clever rendering of an apartment tenant receiving a delivery from Amazon as a bookstore owner in the next building looked on. It appeared a poignant depiction of contemporary book-purchasing habits. Why waste time and gas at the bookstore when you can order a text with the click of a button? I can’t give you a good answer, but what I do know is this: whenever I drive down to my local Barnes & Noble, I have an awfully hard time finding a parking space.
This is because the big-chain retailers have managed to survive the online book-purchasing revolution, though not without financial struggle. Both Borders and Barnes & Noble have had less than stellar stocks in the past few quarters, and there is talk of the latter possibly purchasing the former. Nevertheless, the bookseller behemoths are trudging along while their small, independent competitors have all but died out. How have they managed to do it? Online sales, yes, but my hunch is it’s more than this – otherwise, we’d be seeing more and more franchises closing down and more attention shifting to the online sector. It’s simple. People can easily order a text online. But they’ve made the conscious choice to go out of their way and sacrifice their time for the experience of participating in a reading community. They could browse from behind their desk at work, or they could browse in an inviting, three-dimensional space complete with light music and a Starbucks with comfy chairs at hand. For all its soaring profits, Amazon can’t touch this.
But the Kindle can. Purchasing books online is simply an alternative to purchasing books at the store. In either case, the format of media is the same. But the emergence of Kindle presents the possibility for the demise of the book as we have known it. If the Kindle craze catches on – and I suspect it will, given its convenience, prices and its shocking similarity in experience to reading an actual book – even our biggest book retailers, our last holdout following the death of the little guys, are in serious trouble.
I’m scared. I love my local Barnes & Noble (luckily, I came along after they’d monopolized the bookseller world, so my memory of tiny, independent stores and their warmth and charm is is scant). And I know I’m not alone. Reading in and of itself is a solitary, lonely activity. Done in a communal setting, however, it can actually lead to some sense of camaraderie. As can browsing them and buying them. Libraries serve this same purpose, and while they made be able to hold out longer than bookstores due to their books being free to members, they too face their demise if a new form of media replaces the book. What will we have then? Our public and school library titles available for limited-time rent on our Kindles?
Then again, maybe, in ten to twenty years, coffee shops and parks, already places prone to bookworms, will become the new hot spots for reading, and fellow bookworms can reconvene in accidental Kindle-reading communities. It’s a humorous albeit unsettling sight to envision. No pages turning, no pens underlining, just the low clicks of our keypads.
Yet these kinds of places can never replace the communities of libraries and bookstores, places designed specifically for the act of reading – the reading of books and other paper documents, that is. The Kindle is a tremendous innovation, but will the reader now find him or herself more alone than ever?
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