The Redhead and I spent Sunday touring through downtown Boston, and while walking down Newbury Street (which in Accordion City terms, is like splicing Queen Street West, College Street West and Yorkville together), we stumbled into Avenue Victor Hugo Books, a used bookseller (alas, we don’t have a nice single word like the French do: bouquiniste).
I knew about the store since I remember reading the little writing
exercise/stunt in which Harlan Ellison spent three days sitting in
their window display writing short stories.
We noticed a sign in their front window announcing that after 29 years
in the bouquiniste business, they were closing their doors. Every book
in the store was being sold for half its marked price. Being avid
readers, the Redhead and I went in.
The store’s shelves, which have been fitted into every possible nook
and cranny, are groaning with books. I could spend days just hanging
out in this place, thumbing through old volumes.
The picture above shows a little nook into which a chair was placed for
the serious reader who wants to examine potential purchases very
carefully. I spent about a half hour here engrossed in some E. F. Schumacher.
The Redhead and I each walked out with a half-dozen books. Just for laughs, I topped off my purchases with a copy of Left Behind, just to see what the fuss is about. I’m prepared to be amused in that “so bad it’s good” way.
Right by the cashier were photocopied sheets with a short essay titled The Crepuscule
(Psst! That means “twilight”!). Subtitled “Twelve reasons for the death
of small and independent book stores”, it is a indictment of those who
helped kill the small and independent book store.
I asked the store for permission to reprublish the essay here. They
consented being quick to point out that while the essay points the
finger at others, the store management also acknowledges their own role
in the demise of the store (one has to wonder what it takes for a store
that sells books on the cheap to fail in the most college-y of college
towns).
The Crepuscule
Twelve reasons for the death of small and independent book stores
Ever
thankful to those who made the effort before us, with heartfelt
apologies to those who are still in the fight and the few who support
them–offered upon the closing of Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop in Boston.
1. Corporate law
(and the politicians, lawyers, businessmen and accountants who created
it for their own benefit)–a legal fiction with more rights than the
individual citizen, which allows the likes of Barnes & Noble and
Walmart to write off the losses of a store in Massachusetts against the
profit of another in California, while paying taxes in Delaware–for
making competition a joke and turning the free market down the dark
road toward state capitalism.
2. Publishers–marketing
their product like so much soap or breakfast cereal, aiming at
demographics instead of people, looking for the biggest immediate
return instead of considering the future of their industry, ignoring
the art of typography, the craft of binding, and needs of editing, all
to make a cheapened product of glue and glitz–for being careless of a
500 year heritage with devastating result.
3. Book buyers–those
who want the convenience and cost savings of shopping in malls,
over the quaint, the dusty, or the unique; who buy books according to
price instead of content, and prefer what is popular over what is
good–for creating a mass market of the cheap, the loud, and the shiny.
4. Writers–who sell their
souls to be published, write what is already being written or choose
the new for its own sake, opt to feed the demands of editors rather
than do their own best work, place style over substance, and bear no
standards–for boring their readers unto television.
5. Booksellers–who
supply the artificial demand created by marketing departments for the
short term gain, accept second class treatment from publishers, push
what is hot instead of developing the long term interest of the
reader–for failing to promote quality of content and excellence in
book making.
6. Government
(local, state and federal)–which taxes commercial property to the
maximum, driving out the smaller and marginal businesses which are both
the seed of future enterprise and the tradition of the past, while
giving tax breaks to chain stores, thus killing the personality of a
city–for producing the burden of tax codes only accountants can love.
7. Librarians–once
the guardians, who now watch over their budgets instead–for destroying
books which would last centuries to find room for disks and tapes which
disintegrate in a few years and require costly maintenance or
replacement by equipment soon to be obsolete.
8. Book collectors–who
have metamorphosed from book worms to moths attracted only to the
bright; once the sentinels of a favorite authors work, now mere
speculators on the ephemeral product of celebrity–for putting books on
the same level with beanie babies.
9. Teachers–assigning
books because of topical appeal, or because of their own lazy
familiarity, instead of choosing what is best; thus a tale about the
teenage angst of a World War Two era prep school boy is pushed at
students who do not know when World War Two took place–for failing to
pass the torch of civilization to the next generation.
10. Editors–who
have forgotten the editorial craft–for servicing the marketing
department, pursuing fast results and name recognition over quality of
content and offering authors the Faustian bargain of fame and fortune,
while pleading their best intentions like goats.
11. Reviewers–for
promoting what is being advertised, puffing the famous to gain
attention, being petty and personal, and praising the obscure with
priestly authority–all the while being paid by the word.
12. The Public–those
who do not read books, or can not find the time; who live by the
flickering light of the television, and will be the first to fear the
darkening of civilization–for not caring about consequences.
Thus, we come to the twilight of the age of books; to the closing of
the mind; to the pitiful end of the quest for knowledge–and stare into
the cold abyss of night.
John Usher
From THE HOUND by John Usher, copyright 2004. Permission to reproduce is granted to all upon request with proper attribution.
This essay garnered a number of nasty comments. The person whom I
contacted at the store told me that some people seem to have taken it
personally, interpreting it as an attack on their character (or at
least their lack of bibliophilia).
What do you think? What’s the state of small and independent book stores where you live?
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The Chapters/Indigo/Coles/SmithBooks megaopoly is the devil in Canada.
I only buy discounted books there, otherwise I buy my books at various indy bookstores (in toronto, ottawa and I think montreal try Nicolas Hoare's - the one here in O is an awesome place).
btw: I posted about this a while ago .. I wish word was spreading faster...
http://www.livejournal.com/~sloot/268511.html
Somebody really has it in for A Seperate Peace by John Knowles. Fair enough, twenty-five years later I still remember being unable to relate to it in high school.
I can't help but think back to the days when I'd lurk in alt.sysadmin.recovery, when every so often you'd hear something like this:
The net is dying. Every rec.* group on Usenet is choked with spammers and cross-posting trolls; many have already been made unusable. There used to be some decent shareware on wsmr-simtel20.army.mil, but now contributions are few and far between, and what does get posted isn't worth the $10 registration fee. And now they're letting America Online have access to the net and don't we remember the psu.edu disaster!?!
Yes, this is truly the twilight of the net. We're entering the new dark age, where vast corporate interests will decide what we say and do, where commercialism will run everything and even if the average person still had a voice for their great ideas, the gatekeepers would make sure there wasn't anywhere to listen.
I read Avenue Victor Hugo's prognostications about the death of books, and all I can do is remember how the people on asr turn out to have completely predicted the future with 100% correctness. Or, maybe not.
(Of course, I used to shop at the largest independent bookstore in Canada... though maybe it's a chain now. Look at me, I'm part of the problem!)
I remember in high school and college being a bookstore clerk... it was a legitimate profession, and with the number of independent bookstores and used bookstores in my town a bibliophile could make a decent living being paid to know about books. This was skilled labor: We were expected to keep current with new releases and to have an area of specialization in which we should *really* know our stuff. Interviews at the best bookstores were practically auditions... people would study beforehand so they could really show off their knowledge of an area.
Most of these bookstores have closed now, and if I venture into Barnes and Noble I meet minimum wage cash register workers who might as well be bagging groceries... most can't name an author not on the bestsellers list.
A few of the really good bookstores have survived, though. If you have a good independent bookstore in your area please give them your business.
Things in Minneapolis aren't good, but neither are they horrible. There are some used books stores that are surviving reasonably well. They tend to be specialists and have embraced selling online. There are also some who are struggling because they haven't, and don't have much focus. While every visit to one of the latter is a treasure-hunt, often you'll find that someone else has hit the treasure first.
Uncle Hugo's (SF) and Uncle Edgar's (Mystery) in Minneapolis are in the former camp. Ruminator Books in St. Paul looked like it was going to fold, but has done a good job of reorganizing and revitalizing themselves, and looks more healthy lately.
More than once I've pondered opening a used bookstore myself. This is not the time to do it unless you have a ton of money to burn through, or can acquire an existing store, sell off the unfocused inventory quickly (probably online) and make a niche for yourself. I believe it could be done, but I don't want to try until I've got a lot bigger bankroll to work with.
I worked at Avenue Victor Hugo for three years when I was in college. Heard about the closing and wrote up my memories of what it was like to work there: http://www.cadence90.com/blogs/2004_03_01_nixon_archives.html#108016792038842027
I used to shop at that store when I lived in Boston. It was a nice place to go, except for some days when the moldy old books would give my allergies a turn. I found a number of old, out of print, science fiction books there.
Still, it was a good place to shop. It had a wide variety of books, new and old.
As others have commented, the staff were helpful, and actually knew something about the books.
* weeps with exceeding weeping *
Such a tragedy..... I've been there its a wonderful place and I will miss it.
I miss the city of Boston in general.
Joshua Aaron Day
Roanoke, VA USA
cormacjosh@earthlink.net
http://www.cormacjosh.blogspot.com
Hey!! I didn't see my demographic represented on your list!: "The avid reader who only buys cheap books online", is it because you fall in to that category too? ;) I've bought maybe two or three books in bookstores in just as many years. Do I feel bad about not shopping at my local "mom and pop" bookstore? Should I? the prices online are better, the selection is better and easier to find, I can usually get a plethora of opinions from people who have read the book, and I can usually find at least one independent bookseller through Amazon's marketplace or eBay or half.com who is willing to sell me the old book I'm looking for for a buck or two. The fact of the matter is, the internet can easily save great bookstores like Avenue Victor Hugo if they are willing to "hop on the bandwagon" and offer their wares online. Instead of just a city to sell to, they have a potentional marketplace of the world, and can *still* keep their B&M doors open for locals who want to actually hold the books in their hands while they shop. If they fail to see how the world is changing, and changing for the better, then I'm not going to shed a tear for them, no more than I would shed a tear for the independent record label who fails to understand the place of the MP3 in the furure world of music. -- Sir Mildred Pierce -- http://www.sirmildredpierce.com