Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash
A few months ago, walking around a bookstore was the norm. Ascending the staircase of my local store, with shelves of books either side of me, was something I did every week.
If you’re a lover of books, there is nothing better than browsing a bookstore. The rows of brand new books lovingly placed by the store’s custodians, the lack of sound as people contemplate what book to buy next, and the rustic decor are what makes them special.
Recent events have meant that a trip to the bookstore is no longer possible. Countries around the world have gone into lockdown to counter the threat of a deadly virus. Shops have shut down and bookstores are no different. My local bookstore shut its doors at the end of March and hasn’t opened since. As someone that reads a lot of books that meant I head to get my books from somewhere else. That place was Amazon.
Increasingly, we have turned online during this crisis out of necessity. The online arena has filled a gap where the physical realm cannot. While this has been helpful, it’s nice to click a few buttons and see a book appear at your door the next day, it’s just not the same.
As convenient as shopping on Amazon is, it feels empty. Part of the joy of going to a bookstore is that you can browse thousands of books all at once. Sure you can do that on Amazon, but what you can’t do is pick up a book and read it.
The smell, the fresh feeling of the pages as you flick through the book, replaced by a collection of images on a carousel. Convenient it may be, enjoyable it is not.
The idea that online behemoths such as Amazon will render bookstores obsolete is a pervasive one. In recent years we have seen famous companies such as Borders close their doors due to the growing power of the online realm.
Closures such as this have fuelled a narrative that the death of the bookstore is inevitable. Seen through this prism it’s reasonable to understand how this might be the case. I, however, disagree.
What this narrative fails to realise is that the experience of going to a bookstore is part of the package of buying a book. It’s an intrinsic part of the experience. Buying books online strips this experience down to its raw elements taking the humanity out of it.
The algorithms might be able to recommend books I may like, based on ones I have already bought or browsed, but the ability to browse for yourself is underrated.
Algorithms know a lot about you but they don’t know everything. They can’t comprehend spontaneity or the intrigue of seeing a book title that grabs your attention.
The online experience robs this from you. It presents books that it assumes you will like without definitively knowing what you like. In my case, this is because I often don’t know what I like.
I read many different types of genre from novels to biographies and sportsbooks. The recommendations on Amazon throw up a cascade of books similar to the ones I’ve viewed. Similar to the echo chambers we find on social media, we are shuttled down a corridor of limited availability.
To view books outside of this corridor, I have to smash through the walls and search for myself. The bookstore solves this problem. It has an array of choice as opposed to the limited corridor fed to you by an algorithm.
Inside, you are treated like a human as opposed to a commodity. The warm and cosy atmosphere is in contrast to the cold and sterile nature of Amazon.
The common retort from this crisis is that the world will retreat more and more into the online realm. Why go to a bookstore when you can shop on Amazon? Why go to a clothes store when you can get clothes delivered to your door and send them back free of charge?
While I’m sure online shopping will increase, I think the demand to shop in stores will be greater than ever. We have taken a glimpse into what a mainly online world looks like. It’s a life behind the screen without meaningful human interaction.
The clamour to come out of lockdown and return to ‘normality,’ highlights the desire we have to socialise and to experience life in the physical realm, not the online one. The bookstore is a prime example. The feeling of a book in your hand deciding whether to buy it or not is far superior to deliberating whether to buy this book or that one while online.
Strangers offer their opinion about a book you’re looking at. Thousands of books you’ve not read before can be browsed at your leisure. The sight of books all around you fills you with a sense of tranquillity and happiness that you can’t get online.
The jovial nature of the staff and their willingness to help you with your queries fill you with love for the generosity of human beings. The digital assistant on Amazon doesn’t have the same feel to it.
Above all, the joys of the bookstore are in the simple pleasure of enjoying books, of being surrounded by books and appreciating them. It’s glorious to see rows and rows of books. It’s one of the reasons we’re drawn to bookstores and libraries, books pique our curiosity.
The advance of Amazon might be relentless but for its billions of revenue, it will never capture the magic that happens when you step inside a bookstore. The increasing connectivity of the world has a lot of benefits but it has its shares of downsides too.
One of those is the lack of experiences that capture what it means to be human. Experiences that demonstrate the best of humanity. A trip to the bookstore is one of these and more than ever, we need to appreciate its simple pleasures.
The alternative doesn’t come close.