Too Many Books

A few days ago I commented there was too much media in the world to begin with.

Though one could argue there are NEVER too many books, I have to state my belief: there have long been far too many new books coming out (none of mine, however). Most bookstores, even the independents, are crammed with titles no one is ever going to buy. I believe most of it is shelf-dressing, and a peek at the publishing trades will likely confirm this suspicion.

Is that bad?

Not unless you're a tree, I guess, or an aesthete of economic purity.

This is where two completely different entrants in the book retailing game come in from opposite sides of the stage: e-books and used book stores.

For my taste, there is little reason for a new bookstore to earn my visit except to peruse the bargain bin. Very occasionally a new book seems a must-have, but almost never unless steeply discounted. I own a lot of books, so I know whereof I speak.

For nearly all of my reading pleasure, I supply myself from the stunningly various arrays of wonderful volumes available at low cost from used books stores and charities. Can there be any doubt the world has so many wonderful used books that, were a moratorium on publishing be declared for ten years, the reader's market would not remain well-supplied? I think it would.

Sometimes I buy a "first edition"--for real money. This is because the book, and especially its dust-cover, have intrinsic value. Again, these books are nearly always "used", though they are in nearly every case quite a bit more expensive than a typical brand new book. There is a reason for this--they're collector's items.

With the advent of e-books, there is little reason for me to ever buy an actual new book at anything like list price. About a trillion (it seems) great books are available either for free or low cost as e-books. All of the classics are available as e-books and I have found them quite enjoyable to read in their new electronic get-up. Unless you're literally collecting the volume for posterity (sometimes I do), and if you believe the content is what you are after and not the paper and cardboard of a volume, e-books can provide the reader with about ninety-five percent of his or her reading pleasure.

So I think publishing (and more specifically the "new book" store), like the music industry, is headed for a fall. The fact is, we really don't need that many new books. And those we need, we can--again, except for special editions or signed first editions--purchase as e-books and enjoy quite utterly as such. For the rest, I think we shall see a rise in the status of the used book store for those who want "books". The volumes are as richly varied and as relevant as ninety percent of new books in print, and radically cheaper; and of course have all of the best qualities of print as well (look, feel, smell, weight, cover art). Moreover, you can buy these on-line as easily as you can buy e-books or new books at Amazon.

One model that may prove to work is that exemplified by that exemplar of great book stores, the Powell's mini-chain out of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the world's best bookstore, Powell's hardly distinguishes between new books, old books, and rare books. They are all on the shelves together. And if you want a really rare book, they have those in a glass case. There is something quite wonderful about finding several editions of certain books, from a much-read paperback to a new hardcover edition, all on the shelf together like dissimilar siblings at a family gathering. Hats off to the Powell's model, may it long endure.

The new world of books will probably be crowded with small, specialty book stores and less so with megastores per se. The B&N model is already morphing into less a bookstore than a brick and mortar entertainment store--and good luck to them with that (and their cappuccino stands). A heavy percentage of buying will be weighted towards either cheap e-books (hooray for the iPad) and used books.

There will always be new books at book stores. But not nearly as many. And not nearly as big a market for new books in general, as it becomes obvious that, no longer needed quite literally as window dressing, most in-print book projects become totally irrelevant.

Next up is electronic self-publishing (see: blogging), which will end up putting further dents in the mighty ships of traditional publishing. We shall see much junk published this way. But we see much junk published "traditionally". I fail to see the problem, except that underpaid editors and entirely unpaid and unqualified interns ("readers") will no longer hold arbitrary sway over the fate of any particular author's chance at publication of a manuscript. Bye-bye!

As a final note, let me say that I have read Moby Dick on a tiny screen and found it quite as absorbing as holding that enormous tome in my hand and maybe more so. In the book world, content perhaps at last will in fact be king.

Oasis on Forty Seventh Street

I've posted before about how New York, and especially Manhattan, has been stripped nearly bare of its old, quirky shops--the ones that sold fascinating industrial junk on Canal St, for instance, have one and all been replaced by tiny storefronts all selling counterfeit perfume and watches--and how this has made the city, for large stretches, nothing but an open-air mall with the same chain stores and the same merchandise as in the Dubuque Town Centre (if there is one), but no doubt at much higher prices.

There are of course exceptions, though they seem precarious. There is a subterranean purveyor of model trains and plastic kits on Forty Fifth Street and it is indubitably quirky as is its goggled, high-waisted owner who dispenses N and Z-scale wisdom along with intricately detailed versions of 4-88-4s and pint-sized build-it-yourself Mysterions (incidentally, model-building seems a childhood pleasure now much lost to the ravages of video games--I defy you to try and find a model kit at WalMart--but I digress). There is also a stalwart sandwich shop on East Fortieth going by the rather infelicitous name of "Vaco e Pres" and it used to be run by Italians or Albanians and they made some of the tastiest heroes (not subs!) this side of heaven's gate; it is still there and they still make the sandwiches but it is owned by Vietnamese people now and one supposed one has no reason to lament that in and of itself (though I will hazard a guess they have no more idea what the name of the place means than do I).

However, the exception--the Oasis--of which I am posting today is on Forty Seventh Street and it has long been called The Mercantile Library--not to be confused with the much larger, much less elegant Mechanic's Society Library on Forty Fifth, or the Chemist's Club on Forty First which is now the hotel Dylan. The Mercantile Library recently changed its name to the Center for Fiction and I urge you not to become a member.

The reason I ask you not to join is because then you will help make the place more crowded and less an oasis. For right now it is, for those who can afford the rather reasonable yearly fee, a well-stocked three-floor library (with a great many older books not to be encountered at the NYPL branches) and a place where you can actually sit in a well-appointed room with books and plaster busts and leather chairs and rugs and hardwood floors and all the latest periodicals (on paper!), and read. You can stay as long as you like. They do not have wireless (though the writer's desks on a separate floor do and they cost a certain amount per month to rent). They do have a very good water fountain and they do have very nice bathrooms if I may say so. And like I said, you can sit in the well-appointed, clubby-feeling reading room as long as you like (reading books!); or you an sit at a table and read books or the papers and write or take notes; or you can, if you have a Blackberry, spend your time writing and answering emails though this would seem to defeat the purpose of going there.

For myself, I almost cannot believe the place exists. It is quiet, it is literary, it is not expensive for what it offers, and it is in the midst of a city so unkind to places like it that I fear (unless it is endowed with a fund of which I am unaware)it may one day close its doors and re-open as a Mongolian barbecue.

For now, I am enjoying the respite. I sometimes bring my own books to read there, just because it is such a relaxing, beautiful little place--clean, well-lighted, quiet. Sane, in a word--a quality much lacking in our culture of general cruelty and indifference. Did I mention the bathrooms were very clean?