Aromas of knowledge flow from the antiquated pages and worn book jackets that sit proudly on dusty shelves. Shadowy, narrow corridors filled with the spectral silence of past wisdom arouse noble sentiments, while felines meander eternally through the remnants of literary epochs as symbols of the never-ending pursuit of ideas. Oprah’s book of the month won’t adorn these shelves, the latest self-help book or Grisham’s newest novel, are unworthy to be placed next to the venerable works of Balzac, Goethe and Plato. The smug and vainglorious pictures of authors don’t stare at you on the back cover as a constant reminder of who wrote the book; pages of shallow and vain praise won’t tempt you to buy it. These books need no such introduction, their contents alone beckons the more discerning to go on a journey into the realm of substantiated thought, where each book carries a story within a story. Did Henry Miller bring one of these treasures on his travels to Paris and upon his return to the states sell it for a pack of cigarettes? When opening one of these literary relics the scent of past possessors still cling to the pages, emanating a comforting and familiar fragrance. Whole histories are hidden deep within the pages allowing the imagination to transverse the present to commune with the past. Personalized etchings by previous owners such as, “To my dear daughter Sophie, I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did”, authenticates the copy. This is the glory of the used bookstore—the last repository of ancient literature, the keeper of forgotten and mysterious knowledge, the lone conqueror of modernity, the bibliophile’s poetic dream and the haven for the wandering scholar. But how much longer can a dying king with no army mount his steed to fight opponents that besiege him on all sides without capitulating to his enemies?
Most unfortunately the capitalistic machine is stretching its avaricious tentacles by placing mammoth commercial bookstores on every street corner in Chicago. Borders and Barnes & Nobles stand as ignoble testaments to a culture that values quantity over quality, uniformity over uniqueness, form over content and entertainment over learning. A sense of déjà vu is experienced as you step into a Border’s in California and realize it is the same as the one in Maine. These “fast-food” booksellers with their hot from the factory books, sterile atmospheres and computerized services serve only the sons and daughters of decadence. The large patronage observable at these establishments most likely stems from a pitiable insanity entrenched in the modern psyche that fears anything that is not ultra-modern. This fear is indeed unwarranted but it comes from a misguided idea that the appreciation or purchase of things of old will some how slow down progress or a more pubescent rationale that it is out of step with the present fads. This same type of thinking is exhibited when Starbucks coffee is chosen over the independently owned ma and pa store across the street. How is it that the esteemed book The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas, which has been in print for a century in a half, sells more copies in a month at one Borders than it has probably ever sold in the history of all used book dealers? The answer is easy, change the cover of the book, abridge it, put out a blockbuster movie and place it in the front window so that every Dick and Jane will think it’s new, thereby instantly purchasing it. The old adage “Don’t judge a book by looking at its cover” applied metaphorically when dealing with people should be applied literally when dealing with books, with the addendum, “Don’t judge a book by its author’s picture, criticism or praise by a handful of literary critics, or movie renditions”.
The marketing schemes, TV, Internet and multitudes of various other technological enhancements have all added to the decline of the used bookstore industries. A proposal has been fomenting in consumer land where books in general will cease to exist by downloading and reading it on a palm pilot-like device. It would not be surprising to see a computerized picture of Homer with an ear-to-ear grin on a shrinked-wrapped package of Iliad on a compact disk. If these issues are not dealt with expediently the industry will be as extinct as the wooly mammoth and as rare as a Pythagorean philosopher. This is a call to step into the magical, quaint bookshops such as Myopic Books, Powell’s, and Transitions, where the air is mingled with the Golden Age of Greece and the romanticism of the Renaissance, and pay due homage to the struggling book merchants who are in the business of selling books because they love them
