I have come to value 2nd hand bookstores so much in day to day life that I maintain it as an almost 'must have' when assessing living locations. Great coffee shops are a dime a dozen in reasonably affluent areas, but a good 2nd hand bookshop adds so much warmth and charm to an area.
I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right now, but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that. (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)
> Think of what’s happened at the Strand, where a coffee shop recently joined some ground-floor bookshelves and where you can’t adjust your glasses without hitting some Strand-branded merch.
I did notice that when I was there in May. They place was overstuffed and too commercial. I also didn't get a sense of what Deutsch calls the "slow time of the browse" because I was too caught up keeping polite distance from the too-crowded aisles.
The Strand is only worth going to as a tourist attraction (if you’re fully aware of its status as such), or if you need big art books (they’re unmatched in that category).
In NY, I’d say take a look at Left Bank books (rare, old literature, photography, art books - some are even early editions of classics), Codex (little used shop with a fantastic selection), Mercer St Books and Records (basement hole in the wall), Westsider Rare and Used books (an UWS classic), Unnameable Books (good events and a literary selection).
For new books, McNally Jackson is the preferred one for the reading public. Their staff selections are useful and they have a dedicated poetry and chapbook section.
The one true bookstore in nyc is Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg. The best curated selection of used literature I’ve ever come across and a smattering of other stuff too.
That place is fantastic as well, and just so tiny, barely like a big bedroom! It’s also amazing how zany it’s name is, but it really does have a serious collection of used books. I found some film books that studied directors with depth, but had to restrain myself !
I agree on Westsider. However, I always liked the Strand for its collection of history, science, and math books. While Strand can be crowded and touristy, it still has a good collection of books.
The Strand is one of the places/attractions/etc. that it's easy for locals to dump on a bit because it's something popular with tourists. But the reality is that they can be a lot of fun.
The last time I was in NYC, I was really hurting because of not one but two bad hamstrings cause by hockey. I could barely walk--which is not a great combination with NYC. I had some time and took a Circle Line cruise. It was delightful and I hadn't done it since I was a child!
Just curious, why is second hand book stores that important? I imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon and rated in Goodreads. I am just curious and hopefully I am totally wrong as well.
Just IMO, but with physical books you can open them and inspect the content, this might not be important for literature books but for more technical books you want to see examples. I am not from US and our online book stores do not allow you to electronically browse the books. Review might help, I wanted to buy a programming book for my son (Roblox sutff) and a review told me that the code listings are garbage and there is no actual care in the type setting of the book, now imagine I buy this book at the moment there is no such a reivew(and if the review was wrong then I avoided a good book), with a real store you can see for yourself, the downsides that the book selection might be limited for niche subjects.
Also I think is faster to evaluate the book if you have it in your hands, you can immediately notice if the quality is bad or good, if the fonts are maybe too small so it would be hard to read, if the content feels padded with tons of irrelevant stuff, if you like the art style or language of the author. Is the same like when you want to buy a phone or monitor, if you have it in your face you can imediatly spot things you don't like and see the real dimensions where if you have just some pictures and numbers in your face it is harder.(I bought a watch as gift for someone and when it arrived I was shocked how small it is in reality, there were numbers in the description but numbers felt ok for me at that time)
You can't browse Amazon, it's too in your face trying to make a quick buck.
I just tried browsing Goodreads and it slapped me in the face with a gigantic Please Login Right Now You Terrible Person modal. Not very browsing friendly either, I guess.
There is a charm to browsing a small bookstore. 2nd hand or otherwise. You dawdle in the aisles, meander between sections you'd never think to look at, catch your eye on interesting covers, try the heft of a book, see which ones are long and which are short, the design and the font give you a sense of character, tell you a little about what this book is like to read. You turn it around, read the back to learn more ... there is a spatial component to your search. When you stumble into a book that draws your attention, you're likely surrounded by similar books you might also enjoy.
The experience is distinctly inefficient. Good for when you don't know what you want. Might not even realize what you're in the mood for until you find it.
And somehow you never walk out with fewer than 3 books.
I imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon and rated in Goodreads.
Then you should broaden your imagination.
Amazon and Goodreads have barely a fraction of one percent of the books that were published. And that's just in English.
It's like saying "Anything worth watching is on streaming," even though less than 5% of the world's video content ever made the translation from film to VHS to DVD to streaming. Or paper to records to tape to CD to streaming.
There's a whole vast world of content out there beyond the internet. Once you discover this, it's like taking a pill in The Matrix.
(My metaphor might be off there, as I've never seen The Matrix, but from what I understand from other people's conversations, that should work.)
I understand your metaphor in the sense that The Matrix is a scifi adaptation of the allegory of the cave. The concept that commercial/online bookstores are where items worth finding will be found is like thinking the shadows of the cave are the only thing worth seeing. You are correct, there is so much content there be found, which isn't limited/controlled by what the big market values.
Additionally those are very good points about English and streaming. There are books out there which are not translated and not digitized, which are absolutely worth reading, and will not be found anywhere besides private collections, used bookstores, flea markets, estate sales. Some of these books were originally purchased long ago and/or far away, just because they are not popular enough to be easily found does not mean they are not worh finding.
A friend of my dad is a professional book hound, and he says it amuses him when he sees others who can’t understand what to do with a book that doesn’t have an isbn.
When my wife and I wanted to catalog our modest home library (~1500 books) we were stunned when we discovered that the vast majority of web-based cataloging software assumes that all books have an ISBN. (Or did in 2015 or so). Thankfully LibraryThing does not make that assumption, and is great.
The number of books published annually is somewhere between one million and ten million, depending on how they're counted. Self-published? ebooks? Audiobooks? Etc.
I’ll offer another perspective: human interaction. Good book stores have good staff, helpful other humans that will engage with you and guide you to something you would like.
Computers can fill some, but not all of this role. We are social animals. We are hard wired to feel good when we are in community with other humans, and to (in cases) develop psychosis when deprived of that contact[1].
The price of a book is trivially easy to compare, while the value of social interaction is hard to quantify. Replacing in-person commerce with online shopping because it is less expensive or more convenient may not be as good a deal as it seems.
It’s the type of people they attract. It’s the owners who are often very avid readers. It’s the collection of books you find, most of which have had some amount of curation, if only because of limited shelving. They are often very low margin so often they add charm in the same way artists do to a low rent neighborhood.
Having visited many second hand bookstores in different cities, there are absolutely books out there worth reading not available online- soke will never be available online. There are a lot of obscure books out there- old, self-published, or just really niche subjects- which will never be popular or wanted enough to find reproduced digitally.
Besides being an experience in and of themselves (used bookstores are often very unique and individual, sometimes operated by interesting people who do it out of a love of books or history), you can find some real gems and sometimes even terrible unbelievable books of decades past that would never be something you could find in a regular commercial/corporate book shop selling for profit and catering to whatever is on the bestseller list, what critics recommend, and what publishers want to sell.
Besides the experience and obscure books, used bookstores often are the best places to meet interesting people. Some people, myself included, love the atmisphere of these shops- the smell of old books, the piles of otherwise discarded tomes, shelves where you can find books that were once part of collections curated by bibliophiles- some of these books have annotations on them, some of them are on very niche subjects not easily found elsewhere, some so old if you look for information online you won't find anything. I've had and heard some really fascinating conversations in second hand bookshops I don't think I would ever have experienced otherwise. Some of these shops are a place of community, where people post business cards and event posters for things you wouldn't readily find out about easily- some host events in the store itself (discussion groups, games, book clubs, etc). Some have very comfortable atmosphere and welcome people coming to just hang out, no pressure to spend money. Additionally there is the possibility there for you to build a bond with the owners/keepers, who sometimes will bring out books they keep off the shelves just for you.
Some old book shops are absolutely packed with everything from textbooks to catalogues to literature- unsorted treasures waiting to be found. Books with no ISBN, no online presence whatsoever, items that cannot be found otherwise (unless you were looking for them specifically, and even then they would be really difficult to procure). There is a charm to be found in these shops that just cannot be replicated in common bookstores.
This is a thoughtful question. For me, it's the personal contact and supporting a local business. Amazon actively (and knowingly) harms the book trade and ignores the fact that its third-party sellers sell counterfeit items.
Browsing a second-hand book store is just one surprise after another. I've found books I never knew existed, but instantly fell in love with. I whiled away many hours in second hand bookshops when I visited Edinburgh.
When it comes to new books, making a purchase at a local book store can really make a difference. Last year, I wanted to upgrade my ebooks of The Art Of Programming to the print editions. I could buy it from Amazon, but asking my local book store to order in the items was a wonderful experience on so many levels. The cost was a little, but not a significant amount, higher, but it allowed for some great interactions in the shop. Now, I pop in every couple of weeks, have a chat with the owner and get fantastic recommendations.
Because you don't know what you don't know, and neither does Buy'n'Large. In a second hand bookstore you'll come across things in the same category that are useful and important but don't come up in a recommendation engine because they're not popular. The deeper into a field you go, the more noticeable this is.
Also, the second hand bookstore isn't maintaining a secret police file on every micro-action and momentary impulse you exhibit while inside their property.
For me personally, it’s the experience and atmosphere rather than the availability. There’s also the charm of browsing without looking for anything specific in mind. I know it is possible to be shown a random assortment of books online, but it doesn’t compare with simply walking down the aisles and just scanning over all the titles for what looks interesting.
If you end up in Manhattan: Mercer Street Books, Alabaster Bookshop, and Joanne Hendricks Cookbooks are some of my favorites. The latter two aren’t necessarily cheap but have some really cool stuff.
Would also highly recommend the HousingWorks Bookshop in Soho - they have a really incredible selection of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as art books. I am a fan of Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg, Molasses Books in Bushwick, and Mercer St. Books right near Washington Square Park.
> I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right now, but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that. (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)
Unfortunately, Fox Books put all the small, independent stores out of business.
I know you are making a reference to 1998's "You've Got Mail!", but that movie was (besides being based on the earlier movie 1940's "The Shop Around The Corner" hence Meg Ryan's store, and the Hungarian play that movie was based on), inspired by the story of how NYC's Shakespeare & Co. bookstore was driven out of business by a new Barnes & Noble nearby. That Barnes & Noble has since closed itself.
Wait wait wait. I had to look this up myself: there exists a bookstore chain in New York City and Philly called Shakespeare & Co? And it appears to have no relationship at all with the uberfamous Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris? This is a bit like naming your new restaurant chain "The French Laundry". How could they be allowed to do this?
To be fair, even the current Paris-based bookstore of the name isn't the "real" one founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919 (that closed in 1941). I think the various bookstores of the name today do so in honor of Beach's store so they don't really claim ownership of the name.
No, that is not at all fair. This wasn't a cold business decision.
George Whitman, who founded the current Paris bookstore, and Sylvia Beach, who founded the original, were very close friends. She even toyed with reopening her original shop with him, again under the name Shakespeare and Company. Two years after she died, he renamed his bookstore (Le Mistral) to Shakespeare and Company in her memory in 1964, as he thought that's what she would have liked. He also named his only daughter after her. As it happens, the second Shakespeare and Company also became a hub for authors like Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and many of the Beats. It's the sister shop of City Lights in San Francisco, with a similar author history. Whitman was awarded the Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His daughter now runs the store.
So in Paris there were two Shakespeare and Company bookstores, both extremely famous at different critical times in literary history, whose respective owners were very close, and which were both basically set up the same way. I think it's reasonable to say that they're both the "real" Shakespeare and Company. That's a far cry from the NYC situation.
I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right now, but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that. (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)
> Think of what’s happened at the Strand, where a coffee shop recently joined some ground-floor bookshelves and where you can’t adjust your glasses without hitting some Strand-branded merch.
I did notice that when I was there in May. They place was overstuffed and too commercial. I also didn't get a sense of what Deutsch calls the "slow time of the browse" because I was too caught up keeping polite distance from the too-crowded aisles.