When I lived in New Zealand, the only local bricks and mortar bookstore was a tiny little mall store with exactly four things:
- a wall with 50 shelves each containing, in order, one of the 50 best books as voted on by readers of the major newspaper
- a wall of popular new releases and best-sellers, which at the time included Harry Potter, Stephen King, Jodi Picoult and little else
- a wall of authors of local interest---this seemed to be dominated by the works of a children's author who had a very prolific series of picture books about a spotted dog
- a wall of general fiction and miscellanea which mostly seemed to consist of the backlist of the local authors, best-sellers and 50 best books authors.
- scattered throughout the interior, racks of stationary products and school supplies.
So, tell me how the loss of a such a store would strike a big cultural blow to the community and make it hard for them to discover new authors?
