The Death of the Bookstore

On nice summer days, I sometimes like to drive by Wagner Farm in Glenview, an operating farm run by the Glenview Park District. Amidst the stress and frenzy of adult life in a suburb of a modern American metropolitan center, I love having an opportunity to take a short break and retreat into another time and another place. There is something about seeing cows lazily chewing their cud, hearing the birds chatter, and seeing the red barn and white fence that brings me a measure of serenity. Farm life has mostly been relegated to the margin of our society. Our modern economy has developed so that agriculture is removed from most of our lives. We've gotten very efficient at it, few of us are employed in it, and the loss of that experience is part of the "creative destruction" inherent in the march of capitalism. Still, it's hard not to feel wistful for the sights and sounds and smells of a farm. There's something about it that is good for the soul.

Recently, there has been commentary on the decline and eventual demise of the bookstore (see becker-posner-blog.com post of 1/9/11). I tend to agree with Messrs. Becker and Posner that the days of the bookstore are most likely numbered. Amazon, the Kindle and other e-readers will eventually make this distribution channel of reading material obsolete. Bookstores, particularly the large chains like Borders, are simply a too expensive and inefficient delivery system that is being overtaken by technology. In my view, it is only a matter of time before Borders has a date in bankruptcy court, and it will eventually liquidate.

For a bibliophile like me, this represents an abrupt and dramatic change of life. One of my most prized possessions is my library and I have it stacked almost to capacity with volumes and volumes, from Winston Churchill's multivolume History of the Second World War to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to my collection of roughly 70 boxed editions from the Library of America. I love my books. I love the way they look on the shelves. I love cracking the binding of a new volume. I even love the smell of musty old volumes. And now the "creative destruction" of capitalism is threatening to take that away.

I have jumped on the bandwagon, though. I have been a regular customer of Amazon.com. I have a Kindle and I like it fine. The books are cheaper and it is convenient to download books instantly. I do find it antiseptic, though, and it is just not the same experience starting a new book on my Kindle as it is opening a new volume. Still, even an old traditionalist like me has embraced new literary technologies.

I will miss Borders and other bookstores when they. Browsing around a bookstore is one of my favorite ways to kill time. While bookstores cannot compete with the search engines on a Kindle or Amazon.com, I have often found great reads just because something caught my eye on a shelf. I hope some of the independent bookstores will survive, at least for awhile. Stores like The Book Stall in Winnetka have a chance to survive for awhile, I think. They bring authors in for book signings and their staff is excellent. They have a loyal customer base and have woven themselves into the community. Still, for all their advantages, the economics are not with them and they are also realistically on the endangered species list.

My best guess is that bookstores will soon be like the family farm. There won't be many left, and, just like the Wagner Farm, when you stumble across one, you will stop for a bit, sigh, and feel wave of nostalgia wash over you.