Where is this store? I’m in the eastern part of the state and some people are too afraid to catch The Gay to stock those kinds of books. 
/ :mad:
If you want crap SF/Fantasy selection, let me take you to a bookstore in Windermere I went to on a recent trip to England. They had Terry Pratchett and Harry Potter. That’s it. I said a Vile Word and left quickly when I saw that.
Amazon’s records may be public but if you buy your nefarious reading with cash, don’t use your frequent buyer card, and wear a fake beard you are about as anonymous at Borders as the local store. Moreso, since you won’t have the clerk asking, “Why the fake beard, Mr Urquhart?” Anyway, the locals aren’t any more likely to carry the (nudge-nudge) interesting books.
Because going to the Strand Bookstore in NYC is a unique experience, with tons of books at cheap prices.
The whole “support yer local indie” thing is about people buying into a false notion of “authenticity” (just look at some of the responses to this thread!), and that’s it. I have some obscure reading tastes, the likes of which I often can’t even find through Amazon, but that site and the big chains are 9 times out of 10 the direct answer rather than local indies.
Sure, and when I’m browsing by keyword, author, or link, it’s very convenient. When I want to see a section of books, pick them up, and look at them, I prefer a local, independent bookstore.
I feel all smug. We write little reviews of our favourite books on bookmarks and stick them in. I think right now my co-workers are pushing Moby Dick, Three Day Road, Wildfire, The Time Traveler’s Wife, A Short History of Progress, and My Life in France. I am currently singlehandedly supporting Robin McKinley, Nigel Slater, Tad Williams, and Kim Stanley Robinson.
I will stop hijacking.
I have found most local bookstores to be useless. I love used bookstore, but the local normal ones, not so much. They never seem to have anything I want, the staff has never heard of people that that should have and they seemingly have no inventory database as they can never tell me if they have it. When I worked at Waldens, almost all of the employees were very well read and were far more useful than anyone I have ever dealt with in a local store.
gfloyd, perhaps your local bookstores just expect you’ll go to Cambridge for books?
Schoenhof’s. Oh, yeah.
And this helps any of the 99% of Americans elsewhere how?
Yes, I’ve been to the Strand. As a tourist with limited time. That made it a more frustrating experience.
That pretty much sums up the independent bookstore attitude for me. It’s all about: well if you peasants just lived in a real city you would enjoy these perks as well.
You may not mean it this way, but in general there is no other way to take it. And that’s why the vast majority of us in America cheered when B&N and Borders came to town.
No brick and mortar bookstore could carry the thousands of out-of-print books that Amazon sells via its Amazon Marketplace Sellers (i.e., used book dealers).
To put the “obscure book” argument another way: Amazon sells more than a million different titles of new and used books. All of the independent book stores in New York City put together wouldn’t have even half that many titles.
Me, too. My experience in Powell’s was disappointing. In Eugene, OR there was a large independent used/new bookstore, and while there was a lot of weird stuff, it still took forever to find anything worth browsing, and then the whole experience was shot because the book turnover was so slow. Meh.
In this town we have a “local” place that is as big and brightly lit as any chain store. Meh.
Little used places are generally pretty lame, IMO. I suspect it’s for the same reason that used record stores are so full of records that sucked when they came out and still suck today.
Border’s is comfortable, laid back, and I can read in the aisle for hours without feeling out of place.
Interesting about the long-tail theory, though. It’s been debunked by a paper that Varian uses as an example of a source to find poor economic models in need of correction, and was posted by an economist who’s always been spot on in pretty much every post I’ve seen from him. I’ll probably try reading it when I get home. 
You, madam, are on the side of all that is Right and Good in our world today.
Malaprops in Asheville. As I’ve said they have a big selection, but they keep it in a special Gay/Lesbian section, which is one of my pet peeves. How am I supposed to know if a particular author is gay or not?
It is a great place to have a cup of coffee and they bring in a lot of authors for talks and such. I just don’t like it as a place to buy books.
Now the used bookstores in Chapel Hill…those are the best.
I will say again that there are sorts of books shopping for which I think Amazon is superior, and sorts of book shopping for which local stores are superior. Given the choice between Borders and a local business, as I’ve already indicated in this thread, I attempt to support the local business. Amazon has a ton of used books available; yes, I agree. So does Powell’s; so does the Strand. If a person enjoys physically browsing books, a physical bookstore is best. That’s my preference. YMMV. Powell’s and many other independent booksellers have online sites if a person lives somewhere else, wants to support an independent bookstore for any reason, and wants to shop on the net. If I know what I want, I might search for it on the Powell’s website. If I’m not sure, I might go to Powell’s. Again, YMMV. I assume that this thread describes peoples’ preferences. It’s not in GD. It’s not an argument.
You didn’t say as much, and I can hardly be faulted for politely pointing something out.
The point was that I wasn’t even looking for the book on the Soviet Army, not that I couldn’t find it.
And, frankly, from my experience, I’d say that the definitions of “easier” and “more fruitful” depend more on the person doing the shopping and what they’re looking for than anything else.
Son of a biscuit. I had a feeling it was in Asheville. That’s seven hours away. Oh well, Christmas is coming and I have family out that way.
I don’t patronize Chapel Hill at all. That’s where Satan lives.
A fellow NC State alum, perhaps?
Exapno, where in NY are you? Check this site.
I was living in the middle of Louisiana in the late '70s, and the only bookstores in town were one nice, but small, independent one and a used bookstore that mostly carried Harlequin Romances. We wound up driving 50 miles to Baton Rouge for a decent bookstore. It was pre-B&N, but we cheered when a Waldenbooks opened in the mall.
The first B&N I went to was a gigantic one in New York in 1980, pre-chaining I think.
Not all independent booksellers are paragons of literacy, and not all chain people are awful. I got to know a bunch of the events people at our local B&N, and they were very set on inviting local writers, supporting critique groups, and running writing contests. They may have been working for a chain, but they cared about what they were doing.