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I live in a retirement home in a small town of 3,000 people. Until very recently we haven't had a bookstore here. In Houston, where I lived most of my life, we had bookstores all around us; used bookstores, new ones, big ones, small ones, all over the place.
Yesterday I found that we have a bookstore in town now. It's a fairly conventional small new book store and it seems they're doing well enough that they've bought a larger store across the street and are decorating it to move in there to have more room and even serve coffee and put in easy chairs.
Unfortunately it's about a mile and a half away, mostly uphill from me, and at 76 walking there is unrealistic. I don't have a car. None of my neighbors with cars care about bookstores.
But I do have a Kindle so I'm still okay.
I read ebooks exclusively now because it's convenient and inexpensive and my old eyes need a slightly larger font. I suspect if that bookstore was a block away I'd make it a regular destination just because I like bookstores but I doubt I'd buy anything there other than coffee. It really would be nice to have a quiet place like that to sit and read if they didn't mind me reading my Kindle.
Still, I'm pretty excited that this thing is here and doing well. The fact is that I love to read and bookstores used to be a very nice part of the reading experience. I feel a lot of sentimental attachment to them.
But it's not books or bookstores or Kindles or Kobos that are truly important to me. It's reading and all of these things are just ways to read. They're really nice in and of themselves but it's reading that matters; not books or devices or stores. Not Paper or e-ink. Not stores or websites. It's words moving into my brain. It's the story, the absorption, the fun that matters. It's the communication from the author to me.
Barry
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