Paperback Dreams is a documentary about two Bay Area bookstores, Kepler's Books in Menlo Park and Cody's Books in Berkeley. It was shown on KQED this week, if you've missed it, keep an eye out for repeat viewings. It will bring back fond memories of these two stores.
I remember growing up in Auburn, CA, where we had a very small bookstore in town. My friend Mike Pratt and I would learn of books by various authors, but have no way to purchase them. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac? Not in our town, and not in the local library. The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick? Forget it. But when our high school teacher took us on a field trip to Berkeley, we visited stores like Cody's, and a whole new world opened up to us. We spent most of our available cash on paperbacks and went back to the boondocks to read them. I think without these stores, we would not have survived high school.
Young people today have no idea what it's like not to have access to information. I know I sound really old when I say that. When I grew up, we had no computers, no internet, six TV channels, and no big-box stores. Looking for books was something of a treasure hunt, akin to finding a special object in a video game. Comic books were even worse, you had to hunt them down at drugstores, grocery stores, and newsstands.
I used to dream of having everything in one convenient location. Little did I know that such consolidation would have a negative impact on these industries. Comic-book stores killed the broader-based newsstand market. The big chain stores damaged small independent bookstores. Then Amazon came along and the sheer convenience of them took away more customers. Even libraries contribute to demise of book sellers. Our library allows us to reserve books online and sends us notifications on when we can pick them up. Now I think another nail in the coffin will be digitized books, with people reading content on their iPhones and Kindles.
Even though I mourn the loss of these stores, I can't bring myself to avoid this new technology. We're getting ready to move, and having tons of books is a huge hassle. With a bad back, every time I'm picking up a box of books, it's like playing Russian Roulette. I used to aspire to having a collection of books and memorabilia like Forest J Ackerman. But now I have to downsize, having too much stuff is just a liability.
I'll have fond memories of going to Cody's and hearing Neal Stephenson talk about the Baroque Cycle. But the next time I open up a real book, I'm going to feel like James T. Kirk opening up an antique.
0 comments:
Post a Comment