Anodyne
Monday, February 04, 2013
 
Michael Turner, dropping science:

"Do we miss books sections?

What I miss most about books sections is what I also miss about being a teenager and walking into Duthie Books at Robson and Hornby -- the circular staircase that led downstairs to its Poetry section, where handmade (and often well-made) books lay on a table surrounded by those made in factories, their spines out. Seems every Saturday there was something new in this section, or something to look at again, like Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology (1915) or Diane Wakoski's The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems (1968), books I had to look at twice before buying.

But then the day came when the section stopped changing, replenishing itself with new books. Sure there were books that had not been there the week before, but they only looked like different versions of books that had been there the week before that, and I did not feel the need to look at them again. Of course by then I was getting that kick at Granville Book Company, who could support their varied Poetry section through the sale of computer books, until those books became available online, not as books but as information, a situation that led them, like Duthie's, to close."
- posted by cjb @ 2:39 PM


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