Bookstores
- Planted:
Like many people, I’m charmed by bookstores. I’m planting this note to collect quotes and observations about them.
Robin Sloan, in his Aspire Zine, Information technology should aspire to the speed and privacy of the printed page:
A person visits a bookstore not primarily because they need a book, but because they are the kind of person who visits a bookstore.
(The zine is a ~1,500 word creative essay & experiment on how e-books should work. It’s sold out, but email me if you’d like to borrow my “copy”—I own the printed version, and I can lend you my e-copy.)
Robin again, in his October 2026 newsletter Peaking over the wall:
I mentioned that Kevin’s launch was at Kepler’s, and folks, let me just report—remind you—reassure you: nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats a big, bright bookstore full of people.
James Daunt, quoted in Nathan Heller’s New Yorker profile “The New Age of Reading”:
“Books aren’t a fixed market. The more bookshops there are, the more people will read. The better bookshops are, the more people discover things. Online is an efficient place, but it’s not a place that can excite in itself.”
The whole piece is worth reading if you, too, are the kind of person who visits a bookstore. It’s part profile of Daunt and part recent history (and myth-busting) about the bookstore industry.