Bookstores are doomed, they say. They are disappearing at an alarming rate, they say. All over the world, big book seller chains are in trouble.
They blame Amazon.
And it’s true that a lot of book buying has shifted online. Ebooks are only part of that phenomenon, even physical books are bought online more and more.
It makes sense to me. It’s so much easier to find books online, to find recommendations – and last but not least, ebooks take almost no time for delivery. It’s also a rather comfortable way of getting new reading fodder.
In fact, I have to admit that I have stayed away from big bookstores in the last years or so. I have walked through some small ones and left without buying. These days, I feel overwhelmed by looking at thousands of books that don’t interest me while those fields that do interest me are not stocked. So I go online.
And yet, for some reason, I kept thinking about a weird question:
What would a bookstore have to look like so I would enjoy going there? Continue reading
