This scenario isn't exactly new - people with much more cultural weight behind them than me have discussed this - and what I'm really more concerned about discussing in this blog post is the knock-on effect of this. Reading novels less means visiting bookshops less, and for someone whose idea of heaven used to be spending an hour or two wandering around a bookstore seeing what new worlds I could discover between the covers of a new book, this is a fairly significant lifestyle change. This lifestyle change began, I think, around about the time that I returned to university to do my Masters. As a graduate student in English Literature, the most obvious place to source your texts is a bookshop. Yet, when the texts that you are studying are not in the canon, you tend to have to get a bit more creative to find some of the texts that you are looking for, and that usually requires resorting to the internet and people looking to pass on 20-30 year old copies of Virago editions that they no longer want and the like. Success in sourcing difficult-to-find material, and the lure of cheaper-than-on-the-high-street editions of that material that is easily accessible (please don't judge: I was poor, and didn't about the tax-dodging) led to mission-creep, and before I knew it, the amount of time passing between me entering the doors of a bookshop was getting longer and longer.
Over the last couple of years I've sought to rectify that, and although it means the novels I buy are a bit more expensive than if I'd continued with my internet shopping ways, I now buy them from a person rather than a computer screen. This mostly consists of shopping in the local Waterstones of wherever I happen to be, although if I happen to be in the vicinity of a book fair I'm quite happy to pop in and see if they have anything of interest (sadly the answer is almost always no). Whilst Waterstones is usually perfectly adequate at worst, and decent enough at best (even if they have removed the apostrophe), it's not usually the place for discovering a book that you would otherwise never have happened on. Whilst their bookseller recommendations are useful, there's never really the sense that I could strike up a conversation with one of those booksellers and be led to discover a book that I've never heard of before but that is probably perfect for me or someone I know. The answer to this lies most obviously in the independent sector. But with even chain bookshops struggling - Waterstones only survives thanks to the decision of a Russian billionaire to rescue it from administration in 2011, and just last week, a friend posted on Facebook that Blackwell's in Charing Cross was about to close its doors - it's often quite hard to find an independent bookstore at all, let alone one that you happen to like. As might be obvious given that this post exists in the first place, just recently I was lucky enough to do that.
In Bath for a weekend away with the other half, we were fortunate enough to stumble upon Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights. As Bath is a wonderfully compact city centre, with shops and restaurants all located upon the main thoroughfares, there's very little to tempt you into the little roads off down the side, and this is especially true of the side of the city that is away from the river-front. Yet on our way in to the centre from the car park, we saw this bookshop advertised and decided to pop in (one of the best things about His Nibs? He loves bookshops too - every time we go in one, even if it's just because I want to have a browse - he ends up leaving with at least a couple of books. He now has more than enough unread books to last him a couple of years worth of reading even if doesn't buy any more for the foreseeable!). The last independent bookshop I was in - just a couple of months ago - had left me a bit cold. It had a few potentially interesting-looking books in, but as neither I nor my friend were looking for anything in particular, we soon drifted out again. Mr B's was different. Whilst browsing the displays, looking at what there was on offer, I was soon asked very pleasantly if there was anything I was looking for in particular. After saying that I was just browsing, I was then left in peace to check out what they had to offer. The answer to that was, a lot. Spread over three floors (although a gammy knee prevented me from exploring upstairs and finding out what exactly was in the bibliotherapy room), the shop had all sorts of nooks and crannies in which books dwelt. Whilst some of them were organised around categories that you'll usually find in a bookstore, such as classics or young adults, others had more current cultural relevance. The selection of books throughout the store was quite wide one - as well as the standard books, there always seemed to be popping up books that you suspect wouldn't quite make it onto the shelves at a chain store. The number of each book stocked appeared pretty low, but as this is to no doubt encourage the variety held this is no bad thing. Having spotted a number of books we wanted to buy, at that point we left, reasoning that wandering around with at least one bag full of books all day was probably not the most sensible thing to do. We returned at the close of the day to pick up the books that we had our eye on, and as it was at the quietest point of the day we entered into conversation with the staff on duty. It was at this point that our visit there really took off. The staff member we were talking to was not only friendly, but knowledgable about what we might like and recommended several more as potentially suiting our tastes.
Having thoroughly enjoyed both pottering around the bookshop and talking books with the staff, we finally left, laden with even more books than we had originally planned to buy. It also sparked in me a determination to make sure that not only do I go to Mr B's every time I come to Bath but that I make more of an effort to visit my local independent bookstore. For as well as helping to financially support someone most probably swimming against the business tide - retail independents in all walks of life are struggling to compete against the chains, whether they be national or international - I just might reap the ultimate reader's reward: that of discovering worlds I never knew existed and that I cannot now live without. And, ultimately, that is what I want from a bookshop.
