A Book Store Lament

You probably know the feeling.  You're in the mood to read... something.  You may or may not have the time to read, but it's just time to do it anyway. You enter a book store, walk past all the books the publishers pay for you to see, and find that particular section that calls to you on a particular occasion.   

The hunt. For some, this is a joyous time.  For others, it's a favored means of passing the time.  Personally, I don't read a lot of books, but I do enjoy browsing the shelves.  But, there's a foreboding sadness to it as well, if you're paying attention. 

Visit a Border's or Barnes and Noble, and you may notice that the (overpriced) music section is no longer there.   For the book lover, that's great news, as there's even more room for the books!  For now.  But realize, too, that Kindle and her many descendents will gradually assimilate all the bits and bytes currently bundled as ink on paper.

Environmentalists should rejoice at this as bookworms across the nation join the mythical Green house.  Fewer trees will be killed, fewer polluting logging trucks will haul them, less energy and water will be needed to process pulp, gas will be saved transporting the paper, fewer chemicals will be needed in printing, even more gas will be saved trucking the books to warehouses, less energy will be needed lighting the warehouses and fueling their forklifts, less gas (are we a solar nation yet?)will be needed trucking the books to a retail outlet, less energy will be needed to heat and light the booksellers, and, finally, less gas will be wasted on your travel to the store. 

Instead, press "Enter" while browsing on your eco-friendly laptop, hook up the USB cable to your reader of choice, and you're done.  Your fingertips can meet your needs more readily than your car, and you're saving the earth to boot.  So what if we become unexercised blobs dependent on technology?  (See Wall-E... Seriously, you should.)

And people wonder why I lament the passing of CDs.

Record stores are dying.  First there was the Big Box pressure of Best Buy and others who offered CDs at more reasonable prices than listed retail.  Amazon.com probably didn't help as virtually any rare find, manufactured domestically or around the world, could be clicked into a package and delivered to the doorstep.  Add in the iTunes phenomena and an American Idolized fascination with our most extroverted karaoke singers, and popular demand changes from albums to singles. Mix in a sense of entitlement by the youth population for finding and sharing music online for free, and the economic model is irreversibly challenged for the good ol' record shop.

I went to Best Buy to purchase my first CD of the new year (to be reviewed shortly), as I couldn't pass up a $9.99 price tag.  Why didn't I favor an independent music store in the area?  I live in the northern Atlanta suburbs.  There are a few used CD stores, but there's literally not one independent store worth supporting.

Notably, my local Best Buy appears to have reduced their CD rack space by 10%.  I'm not surprised.  Sure, there's a likelihood that they'll bulk up prior to Thanksgiving for the seasonal surge, but they get a better return on other products in their floor plan.  Ask a college kid, and they'll tell you: No one buys CDs anymore. 

Just wait until today's music buying generation becomes the mainstay of tomorrow's book buying generation.  You best go to your favorite bookseller now, while you still can.  Enjoy the many spines in their splendor, the artwork on the covers, the titles or subjects that you would not otherwise have come across to find something that unexpectedly piques your interest. 

Savor the aroma of the java you purchased from the symbiotic Starbucks, grab a seat by the vacant "music download station" and enjoy the tactile feel of opening hardcovers to read inside the dust jackets.  And as you read through a book or magazine on their bench without buying it, ask yourself, are books really so different from CDs?