
The Life of a Small-Town Bookseller and Writer - jseliger
http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/self-publishing-pleased-brief-glimpse-life-small-town-bookseller-writer/
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shaki-dora
A perfect testament to all that’s lost, yet cannot be measured, when small,
local institutions are replaced by online oligarchs.

Amazon has/had its benefits. For me, it opened the world of English-language
books my local bookstore had trouble procuring. But who knows if I had ever
developed the wish to read foreign-language books without that bookstore, now
gone, that did readings for kids every Saturday afternoon?

~~~
coldtea
> _A perfect testament to all that’s lost, yet cannot be measured, when small,
> local institutions are replaced by online oligarchs_

If it can't be measured, most of HN types wont acknowledge it exists.

~~~
dorchadas
Comments like this always bring me back to one article that fundamentally
changed how I see HN. The title of the article was 'The World isn't an
Engineering Problem', and the top comment was 'the hell it isn't', with
everyone else saying we just had to quantify everything... Not everything can
be measured, or measured objectively, and that comment (and others like it)
really shifted my view of this place and the people who frequent it.

Not in a bad way, as I'm still here and finding good discussions, it just made
me a bit more aware

~~~
zchrykng
This one?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18408063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18408063)

~~~
dorchadas
Yeah, that's it. It's not _as_ bad as I remember, but I still get a lot of the
same vibes from reading it.

------
lifeisstillgood
"""Eight months out of the year he runs a gas fireplace near the front of his
store. He’s got an old leather reading chair near it, where he sits next to
piles of books and a long wood end table which acts as his checkout
counter."""

When I grow up ...

~~~
elorant
When I retire.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Back in the Before Times (Before Amazon), owning a bookstore was something I
considered when I retire. Now that retirement is actually near, sadly, I have
to let this go. There's simply no future in it anymore.

~~~
DoubleCribble
I wouldn't be so sure. Have you ever been to Powell's in Portland?[0] They
seem to consistently liberate me from more cash in one visit than Amazon does
in a year.

[0] [https://www.powells.com/](https://www.powells.com/)

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Powells, in Portland, like The Tattered Cover, in Denver, are multimillion
dollar, well established and well loved institutions. I've been to both and
absolutely love them, but no newbie could ever attempt to duplicate their
success.

~~~
DoubleCribble
Perhaps Portland is already taken, but I'm sure there are other cities where
another parent and child [0] could open a bookstore in a warehouse in a rough
part of town that ~50 years later becomes a beloved institution. And make no
mistake, the impressive main location was NOT in a nice part of town only 20
years ago. That used to be a part of downtown you wanted to avoid after dark.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell%27s_Books#20th_century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell%27s_Books#20th_century)

