Books, e-books, reading, bookstores, bookshelves & the Pointer World.

Stuffed and feeling as if I wasn’t doing my fair share of contributing to society, after lunch with a friend in Boulder, Colorado, I spied a Barnes & Noble across the lot and thought I could remedy both feelings by getting some much needed exercise for both my mind and body by browsing the bookstore’s aisles for thought provoking and informative literature; but that turned out not to be the case. That thought was a fool’s fantasy.

I write (obviously) and read – a lot. I also teach classes in creative writing, as well as having been the proud, very, very proud, owner and operator of “Stories: A Bookstore,” in Evergreen, Colorado, back-in-the-day (2001-2). But, the book and bookstore experience today can be frustrating and overwhelming, and even detrimental to one’s mental health if one isn’t careful, vigilant, and discerning. Yes.

Consider: What to read? I walked into the store, excited, with not a real sense of purpose as to what I wanted, other than “something good” – meaning well written and informative about a person, place, or thing. All. Some Thing to take home with me and spend time with, even in bed and/or to share a meal with – to assuage my aloneness instead of the talking, no not talking but shouting, heads on the TV or some “news” documentary, or some director’s and corporate sponsor’s idea of what is “entertaining,” or my “friends” Facebook posts’ or any of Youtube’s (Is it a person, or a program?) suggestions as to what I might want to watch. In other words, I wanted a book to be intimate with.

I stood, feeling lost, and slowly turned, back and forth, like Mitt Romney at a town hall meeting – trying to think clearly and connect. I thought, Too many books, too many choices. I need some help … and then a clerk appeared and asked if he could help. “Literature, essays, fiction …” I said, shrugging and pointing, as if I flipping pages on my smartphone. “Follow me,” he said, and took me to where I had thought I wanted to be. “Anything in particular?” he asked politely. “No, I’ll just browse,” then added as he seemingly vaporized, “thanks.” I recognized some authors, many, but no, no, no. Ahh, Fransen; How To Be Alone. I flipped to page 99 … What am I doing, I thought, I’m an expert on living alone. I don’t need more of that! Here’s one, Christopher Hitchens’ Arguably. I’d seen Hitchens on TV and thought him erudite and pompous. I read in his introduction referencing another writer and thinker, “… a serious person should try to write posthumously. By that I took her to mean that one should compose as if the usual constraints—of fashion, commerce, self-censorship, public, and perhaps, especially intellectual opinion—did not operate.” And I put the book back. Confirmed. Russell Banks, a truly great writer of fiction said it this way, “I write to my dogs.”

I tried a few other books, but was beginning to feel agoraphobic—too many books, too many unknown people, much too much anonymity in a crowd—increasing the feeling of aloneness, the exact opposite of that which I had hoped for. I decided then I’d go home, where I felt comfortable and was reading an e-book some stranger had sent me. The cyber person wanted me to review it because, she (?) said, “After reading your reviews, I think you will enjoy the read.” And the clincher, “Thanks for your wonderful work.” Nice, I thought. I read ‘her’ novel and then thought, what a mess. I had wanted to fuck the “heroine,” a loopy, over-sexed, rich, young, heiress, but that wasn’t enough to make it worth the ten hours I’d spent with it (‘her.’) I could get the same affect with a few minutes of porn on the Net.

I can’t ever get that time back. Does she know that, the e-book cyber author, who used a pen name. A “pen-name!” What an insult! You can’t trust anything about what a writer writes who writes under a false name. (And by extension - all of the new IT/pointer world must also be held suspect.)

There is a problem in publishing now. (Not that there wasn’t before.) There are too many books, and far too many not very good ones. Even if you allow for personal preferences. Consider a book like Franzen’s Freedom. It debuts as #1 on the New York Times bestseller list before it is even released, and then it is both loved and hated by professional critics. As for non-professionals: of 1,033 readers who bothered to review it on Amazon, 285 gave it five stars, and 298 gave it one star; and “2,862 of 3,260 people found the following review helpful,” says the bot-blurb at Amazon, and said review had just one star. What to make of all of that information? But I bought it anyway and read it, because I had to because of all the hype. Franzen was on the cover of Time! Before the release! I had read his earlier novel, The Corrections, and thought it was amazing but awful, despite it being named the best novel of the decade. (Which is why I thought I had to read it, too.) But none of that means anything because the money was already banked. The money was “in the bank” before Franzen even wrote one word of Freedom. Such is the publishing industry now. (You can read my review of Freedom here, as well as on Amazon and Goodreads.)

So we have strangers and bots and authors and “friends” recommending books for us to read, but the question remains unanswered. With “Stories,” as well as other small, local, independent bookstores, the owner and staff generally know all their customers personally. I knew every book in my store, as well as every customer (we called them “bookies”) and could match them up—book to bookie. I was a matchmaker. But times have changed. Now there are very few such bookstores, fewer serious readers, and more writers and books; and blogs and movies and Youtube videos and friends and tweets and texts and pictures, and e-books and “zines” … all competing for your time and attention … and less and less intimacy, honesty, and authenticity. And everyone complains as they immerse and surround their selves in “IT” — the pointer world.

Back-in-the-day, before IT and the Pointer World, one of the surest gateways to intimacy, and even to a person’s personality (beneath the mask you could say) was a person’s bookshelf. (Guess what it said if there was no bookshelf and no books, just magazines.) The bookshelf and its contents could tell you so much about a person. How many were there? In what rooms? Where in the room? What kind of wood was it, or was the bookshelf manufactured and made in China? Was it handcrafted? What books were on it? How were they ordered? Or not. Had they been read? Highlighted? Written in? In the margins? What did the reader say about what the writer said? None of these clues could be faked. A few minutes, a few hours – and you were intimates. You knew who you were sharing space with … and could decide if you wanted to continue … if you wanted more—more of that person’s time and attention, maybe even to become true mates—intimates. Friends. You might even fall in love.