Thursday, September 20, 2012

Visit a bookshop week starts 22 October - spread the word

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This is a bookshop, in Gunnedah.

Remember bookshops? They are places that sell printed books, things that you can buy and take away to read.

They are also places that you can visit when you are bored and want to pass the time. Standing there, you can browse the shelves, accessing a wide world of imagination and knowledge. You may not buy a book, but you at least pass the time and may emerge with new ideas.

Bookshops are dying. The big Westfield Eastgardens shopping centre is just down the road from my place. Millions of shoppers pass through its doors every year. Outside a very limited range at the ABC shop or the few mass publications carried by the chains, you cannot buy a book there. Its only bookshop closed in the commercial mess that flowed frP1000714om Borders' commercial games. Think of it. Millions of customers and there is, apparently, insufficient demand for just one place selling books.

This is a bookshop, one of my favourites.  It is in Armidale. Armidale still has a number of bookshops. Maybe country people are just slower to adjust to change. Maybe, just maybe, they are more discerning.

Visiting Armidale last weekend, I did as I always do, I went book shopping. I was looking for books about New England or written by people from New England. There I purchased Yve Louis's latest book of poems, A door in the forest. The English is absolutely wonderful.

Yve Louis is one of Australia's best poets. Sydney born, she now lives in Armidale and is a member of the Armidale poets. Reader's Companion doesn't make any money out of her work. They carry her as a service, something bookshops used to do because she is now a local.

This is important. The economics of the net combined with the technical constraints associated with e-publishing work against small niche publishers and especially against poetry. The physical design of the poem on the printed page can be very important, and this is hard to reproduce in common electronic formats. You will only find some of this stuff at bookstores.

Call me a troglodyte if you like. Say that I am old fashioned and that, like the dinosaur, I am bound to go extinct. But I do think that we need to draw the line if we can. 

I am declaring the week starting Monday 22 October Visit a Bookstore Week. In that week I want you to visit bookstores near you and browse, talk to the staff, and buy a book. That's nearly all I ask. I say nearly all because I want my on-line colleagues to something additional.

Will you join with me in promoting the idea? Will you spread it? Can we make this a worthwhile? 

Please join with me. Promote it in every way you can. 

Postscript

Both Ramana and Neil and have already put up companion posts. Neil notes that Dymocks are opening again in Wollongong. For his part, Rod wrote:

I remember the Readers Companion in Armidale, wonderful books... it sells such a variety - not just the standard boring mass published ones. There is a few places in New England where an independant book store still graces the streets: Armidale, Gunnedah and Inverell spring to mind. Alas, there are no independants where I live and there is only one chain store. 

Rod is right. Peter Langston is another Australian poet carried by Reader's Companion. My enthusiasm is not shared by all. In a comment on Ramana's post, Cheerful Monk wrote: "I’ll pass. I’m hooked on Amazon, both real books and e-books. I also buy a lot of non-books from them–they have a great business model. That’s hard for brick-and-mortar stores, but great for those of us who live in the boondocks."

Tsk!

10 comments:

Rummuser said...

I have shared your post on FB and shall write a post soon and link to this post.

Jim Belshaw said...

Thank you, Ramana, for your prompt response. Hopefully, others will respond, too.

Neil said...

You will be cheered to know that Wollongong recently acquired a new Dymocks, following the closure earlier in the year of A&R, which is however now a remainder bookshop -- the pensioner's friend if not the publishing industry's.

On the new Dymocks see http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/DetailPage.aspx?type=item&id=23930

tammy j said...

i came from ramana's post.
i am a lover of real books and book stores too.
there is an atmosphere there that is like no other.
i will help spread the word.
kudos to you!
visit a bookshop week! october 22.
we can make a difference!

Rod said...

I remember the Readers Companion in Armidale, wonderful books... it sells such a variety - not just the standard boring mass published ones. There is a few places in New England where an independant book store still graces the streets: Armidale, Gunnedah and Inverell spring to mind. Alas, there are no independants where I live and there is only one chain store.

Jim Belshaw said...

Thank you, Neil. I will bring your post up on the main story in an update. Thank you, too, Tammy.

Rod, That's interesting. Yes, Reader's Companion really is a good store. An this business of not being able to buy books when you want, taking them away on the spot is a real pain.

Jody said...

I came here via Ramana. I'm a writer, and of course, I do love bookstores. But, mostly, I also just love BOOKS. I find the library as compelling as bookstores, and even as a writer hoping to make a little money, the library sales in the U.S. can be significant.

If I can figure out how to tweet this, however, I will!

All best, Jody

Jeanne said...

I'm finding it increasingly disturbing that when I go into a bookstore now -- a chain, because that is all there is within twenty miles any more -- I cannot find the things I want to read. (No literary criticism section at Barnes & Noble!)

It is slowly becoming a kind of vicious circle -- I don't find the things I want to read in a bookstore, therefore I go online, therefore the bookstore loses out and focuses more on DVDs and coffee-shop trade, and stocks even less of what I want to read ....

I will spread the word about Visit a Bookshop Week!

Best,
Jeanne
(DES lister)

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Jody and welcome. I'm like you - it's the books! I fear that the disease has spread to the libraries too. I gave one personal example on my New England blog - http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/nicholas-fisher-library-sense-of-sadness.html. I should write something at some point on the libraries, just a reflection of times past. In the meantime, thank you for helping me spread the word.

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Jeanne. Nice to have a comment from a fellow Dessie. It is a vicious cycle. I'm not naive enough to think that something like Visit a Bookshop Week can turn the tide. Still, it's a personal gesture, something small that we can all do.