Book Store Owners Are Onto You, Cheapskates
You think the owner of that book store doesn't know what you're doing? Oh, they know exactly what you're doing. You say you "love" books? You say you enjoy perusing the soothing aisles of a book store, so lovingly curated by a book store owner who spends his or her life ensuring that the very latest and most interesting book selections are there, presented for you in the most interesting possible way? You like that a lot? Yeah. So you can go home and order that shit online. Fuckers.
"They type titles into their iPhones and go home," said Nancy Salmon, the floor manager at Kepler's. "We know what they're doing, and it has tested my patience."
Book stores do not exist just to show off book covers so you know what you want to order from Amazon! You ungrateful bastards! Now, the NYT reports, book store owners are doing things like charging admission for people to go to a book store and watch some author read aloud from their boring book, the sort of event which seems like sufficient revenge against customers in and of itself apart from any admission fee, but that's another topic. The point is that book stores need money to live, and jerks—like you—have made a habit of taking advantage of book store facilities without putting any money$$$$ into them, and that has to change, or there won't even be any book stores left. Hence, admission charges.
You know who will save book stores? Keith Gessen, Florida State University's greatest literary prodigy:
BookCourt, a bookstore in Brooklyn that holds about 300 author events each year, charged $10 a person for an event celebrating the magazine N+1 in December, at the urging of Keith Gessen, an author and an editor of N+1. More than 200 people showed up.
"I think it makes it more fun," said Mr. Gessen, adding that he believed all events should charge admission. "I don't think you should be able to walk into a Barnes & Noble and get to look at Joan Didion."
Keith Gessen doesn't think you should be able to walk into a Barnes & Noble and get to look at Joan Didion.
