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The demise of the second-hand bookshop

thecritic.co.uk

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Re: The demise of the second-hand bookshop

#151

Post by cafard »

The nearest thing I know of in the US to the Oxfam shops are the Carpe Librum pop-up stores in Washington, DC. They will operate for a few weeks--occasionally a few years--in a building that is awaiting redevelopment. All books/tapes/cds are donated, all staff is volunteer. Working near one is a standing temptation to purchase piles of books. I guess that the Friends of the Library shops one sees at Montgomery County libraries are comparable. Neither has much reduced my urge to shop in the remaining second-hand bookshops.

"[Graham Greene] and he remains one of the few serious literary figures who also understood the glamour and romance of the bookselling trade." Take that, Larry McMurtry! At least one other moderately known author had a used bookstore in Washington, DC, years ago. And Nancy Mitford worked for Heywood Hill in London for a while.

Re: The demise of the second-hand bookshop

#152

Post by billfruit »

smoe wrote: post #36
mistrial9 wrote: post #21

Used bookstores are a lot like gardens -- they must be tended daily and grown in 100 ways, year after year. The city I grew up in was legendary for used bookstores, and they sit all but empty now, decades later. The 'modern' people chiming in about how to "search faster" are missing an aspect of the experience that is literal and measureable, as well as partially undefineable simply because the portion of the mind an…

For me, the most magical thing about the small local bookstores is the people working there. Just getting into one, chatting with people genuinely and deeply passionate about what it is that they are selling. Having a coffee, talking about a book I read, what aspects I liked, philosophizing about the topic in general and getting recommendations what to read next based on that has beaten at least 10x any 'modern' and…

Perhaps that is somewhat of a romanticised view or may have been different in your country. I usually found that 2nd hand bookstore staff are usually the cheapest labour they could find, and hardly knew the real worth of most of the stuff they were selling.

Re: The demise of the second-hand bookshop

#153

Post by scottlocklin »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #42
jb775 wrote: post #30

I actually really appreciate second-hand books. It sounds weird, but it makes it feel like there's more life to a book knowing others have read that exact copy. I also find it interesting and often helpful reading notes or underlined/highlighted parts of the book. I recently purchased a few books from thriftbooks.com and noticed they shipped from different locations....I'm not sure if they're run as a marketplace whe…

I also enjoy buying used books where one can tell that the previous owner treasured the book over the years and made notes or highlights. However, the demise of the sewn binding – publishers have shifted to shoddy glued bindings even for prestige titles like the collected works of many poets – means that there will probably be less well-used and loved books around, since the binding is likely to give out already with…

Binding is something you can do at home with minimal equipment. I have a fair sized library with lots of old books; got into bookbinding as a side effect to keep everything ticking over.

Even acidic paper is something you can deal with, though it's more difficult than cutting off lousy glue bindings and replacing with something better.

Re: The demise of the second-hand bookshop

#154

Post by smoe »

billfruit wrote: post #152
smoe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the most magical thing about the small local bookstores is the people working there. Just getting into one, chatting with people genuinely and deeply passionate about what it is that they are selling. Having a coffee, talking about a book I read, what aspects I liked, philosophizing about the topic in general and getting recommendations what to read next based on that has beaten at least 10x any 'modern' and…

Perhaps that is somewhat of a romanticised view or may have been different in your country. I usually found that 2nd hand bookstore staff are usually the cheapest labour they could find, and hardly knew the real worth of most of the stuff they were selling.

I romanticised by implying that all the stores are like that.

My experience is mostly from Switzerland where I grew up and Colombia where I have been living the last 5 years.

In Switzerland pure 2nd hand, non antique shops in general are somewhat rare. It is usually sold directly online or in places run by charities. I think 2nd hand had a bit of a resurgence with the raise of the hipster subculture, but don't know the current state. The ones I went to had a mix between used and new or only new.

In Colombia you get a bigger range from the big, cheap labor second hand book stores as you describe, to the small super personal ones. Here is also where for the first time I have seen coffee service and a few tables/sofas within a bookstore. Never back home.

So yes, true, not every small bookshop you walk into will be like that, but so far in every city I have stayed a couple weeks in in Europe and LatAm, I found at least one.

Re: The demise of the second-hand bookshop

#155

Post by m4rtink »

pm215 wrote: post #135
m4rtink wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manga is certainly big part of it, but there was always a sizeable "text only" section as well - 20-30% maybe ? Manga 40-50% I would guess. And indeed, no shrinkwrapping (only exception - the 1000 yen series bundles, but thereit was for practical purposes :) ) and you can see a lot people reading at any time. And its kinda necessary to find what your are lokking for, especially if you are a foreigner with shaky level…

Oh, absolutely, as a foreigner in a Book Off I love the no-shrinkwrap policy and also the way it's a large and well-populated space that's much less intimidating to walk into than the kind of second hand bookshop that's practically empty and you feel like you're being observed by the old dude behind the counter... And they are indeed great too for buying "text-only" books -- I'm just not sure the business model would…

Agreed about the regular local (in my case Czech Republic) used book shops - they are kinda like antiquities and totally different atmosphere. They also seems to buy & sell old and somehow interesting books - if you just want to sell a recently released novel or some text books good luck. As far as I can tell Book Off does not make such a distinctions.

Anyway, as a result there is really not a good place where to sell newer less interesting books to other people - there are some online Ebay like sites & I've heard people buy & sell used books over Facebook. Still far cry from basically going to a nearest Book Off with bags of books to sell (at least that's how I imagine it to work when you sell books to them ;-) ).

Maybe that could be something that would make it work here as well. It really seems like there is a complete "circle" for books in Japan but not here & Book Off seems to be a big part of that.

Re: The demise of the second-hand bookshop

#157

Post by Bodell »

mercer wrote: post #148
Bodell wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to your point, I recently tried to pick up some of my favorite movies from when I was younger, only to find that they were “out of print”. Some of these may not be lost to people searching around online because the directors are well known, but you’d likely have to search first. Inland Empire - David Lynch / The Dreamers - Bernardo Bertolucci / Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia - Sam Peckinpaw / La Luna - Be…

Every one of those titles showed up on torrent sites via the in-browser search feature, and a total of two clicks (magnet link, confirmation in torrent app) would've had the movie viewable on my laptop within, at most, a few minutes of downloading. Ethics of torrenting aside, I can't think of a faster way to get the results you want. For books, again, ethics aside, usually Library Genesis is equally fast.

Yes a friend of mine said exactly the same thing and sent me a torrented copy of The Dreamers. I looked awful. So bad I ordered the dvd. Which had some of its own issues with quality I’ll admit, but at least it wasn’t full of digital compression artifacts. I know not everything is like this but my experience with torrents has yielded a lot of varying quality problems. And these movies are not very esoteric they are made by much lauded directors. The fact that they are out of print means there is no higher quality rip to speak of. It’s why I’m particularly am a big fan of Criterion because they do do this work (such as a 4K restoration of Ran, beautiful!). That work requires money. It will take happen often we disregard these issues because we can get something close faster for free. With books of course this is mostly a non issue so I’ll give you that (aside from good and bad translations or edits. Dostoevsky is a good example. I believe Wallace once asked what does it mean “to fly at” and why would you translate the Russian to somethings so unreasonable.)

However the overall point was that I made a real flesh and blood friend in a physical place which is how I came to know these things to begin with. And otherwise have never heard certain movies ever mentioned and wouldn’t know about them at all.

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