Why I can’t shop at Barnes & Noble

Frederick M. Toast
Aug 24, 2017 · 7 min read

When I was about 12 my parents started getting a divorce. That meant that home wasn’t always a great place: neighborhood, always appearing mid-move, and the arguments. So, after school, we would go to Barnes & Noble. I could read, listen to music, my Dad could work at the brand new Starbucks Café locations. I would wander the stacks, finding a book, reading, doing homework, listening to music and generally learning. In those wild late ’90s and early ‘00’s I had a GameBoy, but no smart phone, PSP, laptop etc. So I would flip through comics, go alphabetically through fiction and find new places in the map and travel section. Not only that, but Dad and I got to know the staff, and they could and would go out of their way to find you a copy of whatever your heart could imagine.

But all that’s done. People don’t shop at bookstores anymore. People have Kindles, apps, e-readers and generally embraced electronic paper Replicants. As a book guy from my youth, I have yet to bandwagon those newfangled things. I acknowledge I’m sitting in the town the railroad passed by. But there’s something about a book. It’s feel, weight, spine, smell, ink. It holds special meaning like each one is the author’s diary who spent time and energy just to put together, creating an emotional attachment with me, the reader. So I still buy books. Here’s why I use Amazon.

I work in the City of New York. I travel all across the Gotham and use my travel time to read. For a long time, patronizing private bookstores was very important to me. My favorites were two SoHo locations I could walk to from one of my regular stops. One of them is the Housing Works Bookstore. I love patronizing this place. When I have time to browse and relax, this is the most amazing place in the city, serving perfect coffee, and everyone is a volunteer. It’s really a beautiful thing, I love giving them my money. That said, my purpose driven bookstore was nearby. When I wanted to grab a new title from my Goodreads list, I would stop there. My first experience there was amazing. The shop is small but robust. I paid the premium because I wanted other kids who were wandering the stacks to continue to have the same experience I did as a yute.

My last experience is indicative of the coffin in brick and mortar booksellers in general. I was looking for a copy of James Ellroy’s LA Confidential. At the time, I was devouring the LA Quartet and needed it. I couldn’t find it anywhere and an employee vaguely gesticulated in the direction of the stairs. Ok. I’ll look down there, I guess. When I got to the basement, I found the crime sub-genre. Great, I thought, this makes sense, I just wasn’t looking hard enough. Thumbing through the stack, I found the last copy in the Grand Central publishing run. SUCCESS. Slipped it from the shelf, torn cover. Expletive deleted. Whatever, tight schedule, need the book. I walk up to the counter. Two slouched beanie donning employees in general hipster garb, which I feel is endearing when in association with books and their distribution buildings, were having a conversation. I stood just a step away from the counter, patiently waiting for them to finish. No biggie, I’m on a tight schedule but I’m also interested in their transition of American/Cuban policy discussion. After what seems like ages, probably a full minute, I lose my patience and just say Hi! The conversation didn’t stop and the employee behind the counter didn’t look at me. He outstretched his arm with palm open facing skyward. I am an annoyance. Embarrassed, I handed the book to him. Before I could mention the tear in the cover, ‘$18.95.’ Jesus expletive deleted. Still no look, no eye contact, just an amount burp and that hand back out like a perfect bisection of Christ the Redeemer, for payment. Perpendicular to me, blabbing away to his coworker. I’m now hate buying this book and considering blockading Havana. Snatched my card and the book, no bag, I’m out. Never to return. The transaction was as cold as staring at the icy glow of a white backgrounded Amazon page. I see no difference. I swore I would now pay the lowest price. I was gladly paying for the love of books and the people who love curating them but, if you can’t even be bothered to look at me, I can’t be bothered to pay you $12 more than the Pennysaver bookstore somewhere in Cornwall UK that will have me the book in two days. My frustration will grow my patience.

Good Riddance

Fast forward to very recently. I’m having a rough day, I want to get lost in the stacks. I hit my local B&N. It’s a multi-floor affair, but not the way it used to be. Now one floor is mostly Legos. Another is all ‘bestsellers.’ The last floor is café, 10 stacks, and a miniature shrine to some old audible god called a compact disc, “See kids, this is where we used to do music before it was just everywhere!” I heard a tourist tell his miniature versions of himself. I went straight to the stacks. I wanted a copy of Stephen King’s The Drawing of Three (I’m hooked, I need to finish this series immediately) and King Solomon’s Mines (haven’t read it, my life is catching up on impactful texts). Thumb through the Fiction/Literature, find 4 shelves full of King. With two movies out this year, it’s a staggering reminder of how unbelievable this guy is as a writer. Last copy of Drawing of Three. Score.

Turn around, H’s, Hilde, Hall, Higgins, wait, ok, no Haggard. Maybe wrong section? Next stop, computer terminal to search. Boom, 1 copy, fiction stacks, under Haggard. My eyes were probably wrong, in a matter of seconds, I’ll have it. Wah, wah, not there. Is there another one out there like me, deciding that August is the time to read an adventure novel about Africa? Is this the Tuesday that some other mope like me slugged into B&N for a copy of some crusty regent’s dirty hole in the ground? Unlikely. There must be a mistake. Last stop, the ubiquitous B&N employee standing twirling their nametag lanyard. “Hi! I’m looking for a copy of Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, which the computer over there said you had, but I can’t find.”

Greeted with a smile and an Ok! I follow the employee to the employee computer terminal. This Watson must house the true novelized information of where the alphabetical stacks have gone wrong and where the public access computer system has fallen short with its intentional misinformation! I am told that the book is available for print and binding on demand. Then, I am politely informed that if I am interested in the book (Nope, showed up just to see how quickly you could find obscure titles, next up The Imperialists by Long, GO!) I could order it now for $15.95 and it could be shipped to my home. Now, my friends have an unkind name for the look that unintentionally appears as a steely part of my visage in response to things that are absurd or illogical, but let’s keep it PG and say, I made quite a face. Another employee, who saw that my reaction had turned his co-worker to stone, quickly jumped in to try and resolve the situation saying, “Oh, hey, you know, you can just buy it online, it will be much cheaper, would you like to do that now?”

That guy is also now a gargoyle.

Are you expletive kidding me? Seriously, have we all gone mad? I am here. Do you see my presence? I have requested a book. I’m willing to pay you many more drachmas than it is worth to have the experience of another smiling employed human being hand it to me so that I may take it to the cave in which I dwell, enjoy it thoroughly, and then place it’s daintily worn spine and cover of slightly peeling lamination, on my mantle in mute witness to my accomplishment so that many years from now I can point to it and say, I conquered this. And you! You, like the self-effacing Santa from Miracle on 34th St, feel some comfort in redirecting me to the location which does carry what I’m looking for (and at a better price too, teehee!)? Thanks for making it clear that I’m the insane one for setting foot in this joint.

As an incredible digression, there was more suited security in this 30,000 sq/ft requiem to written word than cops at Trump Tower. I guess it’s in response to all those Sue Grafton and Jimmy Patterson enthusiasts who are protesting egregious paperback pricing by slamming through the revolving doors and taking whole displays of E is for Eek and Along Came the Movie Rights. I was so tightly surveilled I thought perhaps Dan Brown’s books might actually contain some sort of codex.

TLDR, more than happy to be counted amongst the people who sit at their desks, eat their lunches, quietly ‘alt-tabbing’ their way to Amazon, purchasing dead media, to be enjoyed shortly after my return to that dusty old cave. People of my generation have made it clear that customer experience counts. If that doesn’t resonate, some dusty old clods like me will click you out of business and, sadly, out of a job.

)

Frederick M. Toast
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