Bookstore magic

As a child I was just like you I was always in a bookstore or library. When I go into  Barnes & Noble now, I get a certain feeling of magic and to be surrounded by so many great authors. I definitely understand what you mean about the feel of a bookstore. I hope that future generations will experience a bookstore. I have an e-reader and I do enjoy it a lot when I'm traveling. I could never give up the feel of holding a book. To open a book is priceless to me.  

AvidReader&Writer ~

Thank you for your comment. I haven't used an e-reader yet, but I can see the advantages of having one for traveling! I just hope that we can continue to enjoy the sensory experience of choosing physical books in a library or bookstore.

Martha

Hi Martha and AvidReader&Writer,

I love books - I always have.  I took time out this evening just to count the books on my bookshelves - I stopped after reaching 300. Over the last couple of years I've averaged reading approximately 20 books a year.  That may not seem like a lot of books to read to some, but to me, it's a vast improvement over previous years.  

My book topics range from Charlie Browns 'cyclopedia (Funk and Wagnalls, Inc.), The Family Treasury of Children's Stories, Richard Bach, Shakti Gawain, Poems That Touch the Heart, Joyce Carol Oats, Steven Covey, Lee and Bob Woodward, Parker, Kellerman, Friedman, Brown, Sparks, Cornwell, Lessing, Miller's Antique Price Guide, The Grammar Lady as well as the Writers Market and just about everything in between.  Most of my books I purchased from the local franchise bookstore.

My point being that I like to feel a book in my hands. When it's a new book from a bookstore, its almost like an aphrodisiac - an excitement - I get to smell the newness of the outside of the whole book before I even open the first page.  Then I slowly run my fingers along the outside covers, across the top, side and bottom edges of the pages, all smooth and new and waiting to be handled.  After I'm done inhaling the freshness of the outside jacket, I open to the first page and gently start the process all over again. I have a sense of ownership now - this is my book!  

You can not do that with an e-reader. I sincerely hope the bookstores - local and/or franchise - will stay in business for as long as I'm alive. I too hope future generations experience the "magical bookstore feeling."  

Mother's Happy Child

Hi Mother's Happy Child

I could not have said it any better! I get the same excitement when I open a book. I went to a book store today and I was like a kid in a candy store. I do have an e-reader but I find myself with more books then before my e-reader. I also did a book count 213. It will continue to grow. On my e-reader I have 79 books but I only use it for travel nothing more. Bookstores truly have a magical feeling.

Avid Reader & Writer

    Bookstores and libraries are magical places. Go to a bookstore or library and just sit and look at all of the books that are surrounding you. It gives me the feeling of an explorer in a never seen before land. Countless adventures waiting on the shelves. Being able to see the many books around me and be able to touch them makes the stories come alive in my imagination even before I've taken the book off the shelf.

    I have been thinking about getting an e-reader for a while. I have looked at them and there is no doubt it would be handy to have one thousand books on one handy little electronic device. That is one of the biggest problems with e-readers, they are electronic devices. A book is pretty much a maintenance free device. A book doesn't need software updates, batteries, WiFi or 3G, you just pick it up and read it. I look forward to having a few hours of solitude from the technology that I'm surrounded by everyday. It's nice just to turn off the phone, computer, TV, and sit and read a good lowtech book.

I wouldn't want book-stores to go out of style.  I agree with all of you about the power of a new book; the thrill of just going into a book store and browsing all those books!  As for e-books, I too can see the value for traveling but I still want the feel of the book in my hand; therefore I have yet to get a Kindle or other e-book.

I'm glad to see that there are people who still value libraries, bookstores and actual books. I guess it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that we need to make sure we're using our purchasing power in bookstores and using the library, too!

My mother introduced me to book ownership at a young age with my first Nancy Drew (The Ghost of Blackwood Hall).  I was hooked.  The heft of an unread book in my hands, the crispness of pages yet unturned, the adventures within.  I will never buy a Kindle, Nook or any other electronic reader.  Must everything be immediate, electronic and battery operated?  When everything is at your fingertips RIGHT NOW, the sweetness of anticipation is lost.  I will always go to bookstores and I will always buy books.  That's a promise to myself.

Hi, Sweetjessy! Nancy Drew was one of my childhood favorites, too -- the first series I ever read. My mother gave me two or three Nancy Drew books she had as a child in the late 1930s/early 1940s. From then on, I haunted both the library and Waldenbooks to find the Nancy Drews I hadn't read yet. I think I fell in love with bookstores, book series, and mysteries all at the same time! I doubt that would have happened if I had been downloading Nancy Drew books to my electronic reader. Thanks for your comment.

I, too, am saddened that Borders is closing a lot of its stores.  I get excited just seeing signs for Borders or Barnes & Noble.

I really hope bookstores won't be a thing of the past.  I really hope the digital reader fad is just that and people will realize there is nothign like cracking open a brand new book (or even a used one for that matter).  I stare at a computer screen all day, the last thing I want to do when I read my favorite books is read them on a silly screen!

As a reader I prefer to be able to read without electricity. To handle a book and even write in it because it is mine, because I bought it at a bookstore I spent hours in, is never going to be replaced by an object that you keep having to put money into (via buying electricity).

Will literacy again become something only a person of financial means can afford to own?

Also I find that I actually buy more books from having the bookstore experience, by walking around and touching them, than I do online. Online I do not explore outside of the original reason I went to find reading material.

So I actually spend more money in a bookstore than I ever will digitally, just by adding the element of touch to the experience.