Dangers of the Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore

I went to a brick-and-mortar bookstore for the first time in a long time the other day. My town has two outlets of a big chain store and a handful of independent booksellers. I wanted to get a copy of Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as a gift for my graduate assistant. I’ve mentioned those habits often in our conversations about professional life and she’s never read it. The selection at the independent booksellers tends to be limited so I figured the big chain store was my best bet.

This particular store has a foyer where they put displays of discounted books, usually non-fiction and children’s books. Fortunately, this day the display contained books for keeping up kids’ math skills during the summer, so I made it through without touching anything. Inside the store is a different matter; latest releases, bestsellers, and discounted stuff are displayed so I can’t walk past them without looking and touching.

I went into sensory overload. My adult brain shut down and my child brain started figuratively running up and down the aisles shouting “books, books!”  There used to be a game show on TV where contestants got five minutes to grab as much as they could off the shelves of a big box store. As I recall, the contestant with the most dollars’ worth in their cart was the winner and got to keep everything they grabbed. I’d be like that if the chain bookstore provided shopping carts. My child brain would drag my body around grabbing as much as I could and throwing it into the cart without even bothering to read the cover blurbs.

Before I even got close to The Seven Habits, I had The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I’m going to a reading and workshop she’s giving here in a couple of weeks. Even though I’ve read and loved Manhattan Beach, I’ll get more out of the workshop if I’m familiar with her work, right? Besides, if she’s willing to come to Nebraska as a guest author at my alma mater’s MFA summer residency and give a public reading and help host a workshop, I should support her, right?

One of my favorite mystery authors, P.D. James, has a book of short stories out. I needed to buy that. My child brain is worried that, since she died in 2014, her work will go out of print before my collection is complete even though, like Agatha Christie, she’s one of the most popular British mystery writers ever and Christie’s work certainly hasn’t gone out of print.

Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman was part of the Great Summer Reads! display. There was a lot of hype when it was published because it’s a kind of epilogue to Lee’s iconic To Kill a Mockingbird and it’s the only other book she wrote. Because I haven’t read Mockingbird for decades and I don’t have a copy in my personal library, I had to go in the stacks and find one.

And then some Ted Kooser poetry because I saw a sign that said “Poetry” which reminded me of Kooser. I love Ted Kooser. I love his poetry; I’ve never met the man. But he lives in Nebraska and I know people who have met him so maybe, someday, I will. He’s the kind of writer that I’d like to invite for dinner. We’d talk, lingering over wine with the sticky dessert dishes pushed to the center of the table. My child brain would be jumping up and down shouting, “Ted Kooser! Ted Kooser!” And, if an opening presented itself, I’d tell him my ‘discovering poetry through Ted Kooser’ story.   

I had to ask a clerk for help in finding The Seven Habits, which was a good thing because asking for help requires the adult brain to take over. Still, the child brain managed to grab a pretty jigsaw puzzle off the shelf because puzzles are supposed to be good for aging brains. The child brain is determined not to age.

Normally I shop for books online. With Amazon Smile I can support the Nebraska Writer’s Collective, a local group that sponsors programs like Louder Than a Bomb, a youth poetry competition, and Writer’s Block, a creative writing program for people who are incarcerated. Not that NWC is going to get rich off my donation but for a small non-profit every penny helps. And it helps my child brain justify buying more books when my to-be-read shelf is almost full. Being able to see the cart total while I’m shopping helps keep the adult brain engaged.            

In a brick-and-mortar store, I’m limited only by how much I can carry. Paperbacks don’t weigh much, and books are such a manageable size that I can easily carry a stack of them. That’s why I don’t go to the brick-and-mortar bookstore very often. The number of books I can carry is dangerous.