What We Gain from a Good Bookstore

If you want to find more secondhand books, check your local colleges and universities. Some have annual book fairs where books are sold at heavy discounts. I found some gems at such a fair when I went a few years ago. You need to go early though, because others will snatch the best titles if you don't. I also went there a few weeks ago to drop a load of my old textbooks, some of which are like new. Hopefully, they make their way into hands that will find a use for them.

Anecdotally, I currently have an outstanding book order on Amazon for a title I'm convinced I wouldn't find anywhere in store. The title is 20+ years old and a little niche.

I don't really think that's what the article was getting at. (although I'm not quite sure what it was trying to do)

Work from home / hybrid shift may help? Anecdotally, folks seem to seek more in-person or in-community experiences when they lose some of what they used to get from the in-office experience.

For some folks, there also seems to be a slight shift from prioritizing destination to prioritizing journey, and from efficiency to experience.

These shifts may not be enough to make the business models work for most, but bookstores with good locations and experiences can sell plenty of high-margin food and beverages, and can possibly find new business model edges (subscription?, joint subscriptions w/ other businesses?, event hosting?, classes?).

I have come to value 2nd hand bookstores so much in day to day life that I maintain it as an almost 'must have' when assessing living locations. Great coffee shops are a dime a dozen in reasonably affluent areas, but a good 2nd hand bookshop adds so much warmth and charm to an area.

I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right now, but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that. (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)

> Think of what’s happened at the Strand, where a coffee shop recently joined some ground-floor bookshelves and where you can’t adjust your glasses without hitting some Strand-branded merch.

I did notice that when I was there in May. They place was overstuffed and too commercial. I also didn't get a sense of what Deutsch calls the "slow time of the browse" because I was too caught up keeping polite distance from the too-crowded aisles.

I wonder if Gen Z will know book stores that aren’t Barnes & Noble or independents who sell everything from books to socks to chocolate, but still call themselves bookstores.