Turn Off Your Computer

Turn it off.

Don’t read this. I really wish you wouldn’t. So please do both me and yourself a favour and turn this off. It’s true that this is a blog. And I’ve been writing this blog for the past few days. There’s a first time for everything. But I don’t find it very satisfying. So I would prefer that you read books, articles, letters, and the like that have been published in print.

Thankfully, very few people will read this. And I don’t want you to either. So don’t. If you care about books, music, and film, then turn this thing off, if you can bear to, and go read a book; write a letter; pick out an album, look at the artwork, and put it on and listen to it from beginning to end; or grab a video or DVD and watch it.

I love all kinds of books, movies, and music. I love these objects. People say I am real gourmand for loving these things so democratically. But I just can’t get used to a reality in which these works of art have lost their physical form. It’s true that there are still bookstores, still video stores and movie theatres, still music stores, still stationery stores, and the objects in them. But these places, and the objects inside them, seem to be disappearing. Friedrich Engels (and Marshall Berman) suggests that “All that is solid melts into air.” And these places and objects seem to be doing just that, melting into air. 

So enjoy your neighbourhood while it lasts, because these stores seem to be disappearing from a lot of neighbourhoods. I don’t know what’s supposed to replace them. And enjoy these objects, because these objects seem to be disappearing, too. I think we all know what’s replacing them. And I don’t like it. I don’t really want any part of it. I don’t want to read your favourite blog, or download your favourite song, film, or book.

But if you’ve got an object, something I can hold in my hands, I’ll give it a try. If you’ve got an album you want me to listen to, I’ll listen to it twenty times. If you’ve got a film you want me to watch on my VCR or DVD player, I’ll watch it five times. If you’ve got a book, you’d like me to read, I’ll read it. And then what friends we’ll be. But don’t read this blog. Turn it off. But if you’re at a music store, a book store, a video store, a stationery store, I’ll see you there—and we’ll have lots to talk about.  

Three Cheers for the Book Store

Read these.

Whatever happened to the book store? I know there are still a lot of book stores around, and books therein. But the bookstore is disappearing. 

There are all kinds of big book stores that still flourish: Chapters and Book Warehouse still thrive, and thank God for that. But for every big book store that thrives, there are others that have gone out of business. All book lovers in greater Vancouver remember Duthie Books. They operated for decades. There were branches all over the city. What a terrible loss. 

Just as some big bookstores thrive, there are some smaller book stores that flourish in Vancouver:  Blackberry Books on Granville Island, and The People’s Co-op Bookstore on Commercial Drive still flourish, and thank God for that. But for every small book store that flourishes, there are others that have gone out of business. Many book lovers in Vancouver will remember The Granville Book Company on Granville Street near the Commodore. They operated for years. And who can forget the excellent Magpie Magazine Gallery? I loved that place. The loss of these book stores is a terrible one for me. 

Perhaps the biggest killer of book stores is the internet. Owning and running a bookstore is a difficult enterprise at the best of times, but the difficulty in maintaining a bookstore has been made just that much more difficult by the internet: the internet is killing the book store. And I hate that. 

The internet has killed many book stores. This is true. But there are other market-driven reasons for these book stores’ demise: Big non-book stores like Costco, and Walmart sell a lot of books, and they sell them cheaply. Many people are happy to buy books from these places. Hurray for the market! I don't mind these big stores selling flats of doughnuts, vats of salad dressing, helicopter engines, and the like. But books are different. And people who work at Costco and Walmart don't care enough about books.

People who work at book stores do care about books. They love them. And more than this, there is something of a fulfilled intention in the relationship between books and the place they are sold. Surely, just as the body houses the heart that beats, bookstores house and help to fulfill the aesthetic and moral purpose of the book.

So let the book store thrive, let it flourish. Let’s not read our books online or order our books online. Let’s go to the book store. And if we do go to a book store, let’s not go to a big box non-book store: Let’s go to a real book store.

Three Cheers for Books

Read this

I recently read Sara Barbour’s op-ed piece, “Kindles vs. Books: the dead trees society.” I’ve never read a Kindle, except over the shoulders of some (very efficient-looking) people on the bus. So I can’t claim to have any expertise with them, or any other e-reader. Like Barbour, I love books and I agree with many of the ideas she puts forward in her article.


Like Barbour, I also delight in the sheer volume of pages represented by the books on my shelves. I have too many books on my shelves and every year I must get rid of a few so that there is room for new ones. But I do love to look at their spines. Every read book is an accomplishment for the reader. And just as hikers will take pride in having climbed a particular mountain, readers will take pride in knowing they have read Henry James, or Virginia Woolf, or David Foster Wallace, or Zadie Smith. Having the physical book reminds readers of their accomplishments.

I also like Barbour's ideas about the book as a gift. The specificity of the book as a gift has the power to dignify both the giver and the receiver.  How many times have I been delighted by the gift of a book from a friend? The gift is the book itself, of course. But another gift related to this is the deepening of the relationship when both giver and receiver have read the same book. It’s something for the two to remember and talk about for years. The gift of a book promises more gifts to come: “I’ll give you another next time.” A gift of a Kindle, on the other hand, implies for me a kind finality: “This is the last gift you’ll ever get."

I admire as well Barbour’s notions about books as objects, there to be looked at, lifted, carried, dog-eared. The reader has a physical relationship with the book. I love the physical presence of a book. The Kindle’s GUI is perhaps nice to look at and the device perhaps easy to carry, but I don’t think it can match the sensory satisfaction of a book.

Umberto Eco recently had something to say about the virtue of the book as object as well. I can’t recall the specifics of the interview, but he stated that books are important because you can’t improve on the technology. He says that a book is like a spoon. Both spoons and books have been with us for ages and they perfectly serve their function. For now we have digital books, and, as Barbour says, they may eventually replace physical books. In the meantime let's enjoy our paper books, while waiting for a world of digital spoons.