The End of Bookstores

I’m going to miss book stores.

I know that eventually the bean counters will win. They love to fiddle with numbers. Eventually, they will determine that enough folks have digital book readers and too much money is spent on printing and shipping books to stores.

They’ll convince the brass that it doesn’t make sense any more. “Look at Amazon, heck, they don’t need a storefront. We don’t even need a warehouse, we’ll just zap books to people.”

When that day comes, the day that the final big book retailer closes its front doors, I’ll work my way up to the front of the line.

I may sob a little to see a place where I had so many good moments get closed down. I’ll think about the all the time I spent browsing the shelves, waiting for a book to catch my eye and then become immersed in a topic I didn’t expect to be interested in.

I’ll miss the magazine rack. I never had enough time to really dig into all the magazines I wanted to look at. It ran the gamut too. I’d look at design magazine. Business magazines. Tech magazines. Popular Science. Popular Mechanics. Maxim. Make.

I’ll miss hanging out in the coffeeshop. I loved to get an ice coffee and tap away at my laptop. I’d never be able to resist the temptation to get up and find a book or magazine to look at while I was suppose to be working. But it’s okay, bookstores are just dead old dinosaurs now.

The new generations won’t really get it. They get the Internet. Instant information at your fingertips. Need a question answered? Tap, tap, tap. Answer revealed, problem solved.

But they won’t feel the magic of being surrounded by thousands of books. Authors who have spent months or years pecking away at their computers to give us something we can hold in our hands and enjoy. No more.

I suppose books will always be around. The Library of Congress will keep a War and Peace tucked away for future generations to stare in amazement at. And books in their digital form will continue to be written.

It’ll be a sad day. I know it’s coming. So I’m going to enjoy my day today in Borders.