For We Read a Little Christmas

One of my favorite things to do to get into the Christmas spirit is read a nice Christmassy book. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, along with a good few that I haven’t gotten to yet but have high hopes for.

Feels Like Christmas... Even If It's Not

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling

Some books put me in mind of Christmas even though they have little or nothing to do with the holiday itself. I’m not sure what it says about me that the books that do that for me are fantasy novels, but perhaps the connection is not all that odd. After all, both of these series are deeply invested in the messages of Christianity, even if they are not overtly about Christianity or Christmas.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... to Fall in Love

How the Dukes Stole Christmas, Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Sophie Jordan, and Joanna Shupe

True-Blue Cowboy Christmas, Nicole Helm

Winter Wonderland, Heidi Cullinan

Nothing says Christmas reading to me like a lovely holiday romance novel. How the Dukes is a collection of four novellas with historical settings by four big names in historical romance. Each of these four stories is in light conversation with a famous Christmas story, and part of the fun of this collection is picking out the references and echoes. True-Blue is a contemporary cowboy romance and hits traditional things associated with 21^st century Christmas celebrating pretty hard—you’ll find tree trimming and cookie making and so on here. Wonderland is an m/m contemporary with slight BDSM overtones. Like many of Cullinan’s works, it’s most excellent in its exploration of male friendship and found family. While the steam levels for these recommendations vary, note that none of them is “sweet”—there’s sex on the page in each of them. So heads up if that is not your flavor.

Deck the Halls with Deductive Reasoning

Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards

The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, edited by Tara Moore 

Here are two collections of Christmas tales that are on my TBR. Since I haven’t read them yet, I can’t vouch for them personally, but I am excited to give them a go. Silent Nights collects fifteen mysteries set at Christmas by British writers, and Ghost Stories presents thirteen Christmas-set ghost stories from the Victorian age. As a fan of A Christmas Carol, I’m particularly interested in tucking into the latter.

Oldies But Goodies

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

A Child's Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas

The Homecoming, Earl Hamner, Jr

Carol and Wales are two of my all-time favorite Christmas stories. I reread Carol every year and have done so since I was in my late teens. If you have never read it (especially if you have only ever seen one of the many admittedly very wonderful film adaptations), I encourage you to give it a try. It’s just the right length to satisfy any desire for Victorian vibes you may have (everyone gets wistful for Victorian times at Christmas, right? No? Just me?) without bogging you down, the details are exquisite, it’s funny, and it’s a wonderful redemption story. Wales is a short story just brimming with old-fashioned Christmas delights and absolutely stunning language. The Homecoming is the novel upon which the TV movie of the same name (which in turn spawned the TV show The Waltons) was based, and it’s a fascinating evocation of Christmas in depression-era Appalachia. Hamner captures his characters (especially the children) so quickly in small moments that they seem to jump off the page.

A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That

The Snow Queen and Other Winter Tales, Barnes and Noble

A Family Christmas, selected by Caroline Kennedy

A Christmas Treasury, Barnes and Noble

These three anthologies all provide a variety of Christmassy and winter tales and stories. Winter Tales is heavy on traditional tales and fairy tales, including many by Hans Christian Andersen, though stories by Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde also appear, as well as a few traditional Native American tales. A highlight may be Alexander Dumas’s novella-length The History of the Nutcracker, which retells E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” (which, unfortunately, is not included). Family Christmas includes mostly shorter Christmas pieces, and contains a lot of songs and poems as well as stories and articles. Be aware that not everything in this collection will be suitable for (or appealing to) children. Treasury collects ten stories and nine poems and would be an excellent one-shot for snagging several classics of Christmastime, including Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, and Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” This anthology also includes lovely full-color and black and white illustrations.

And This Is All True

Perhaps you prefer your Christmas reads with a side of learnin’? This pair of nonfiction Christmas books may suit you. These are also on my TBR (so again, I can’t recommend them personally, except to say that I want to read them).

Why Was the Partridge in the Pear Tree?, Reverend Mark Lawson-Jones

A Jane Austen Christmas, Maria Grace

Partridge is an illustrated little book that explores the history behind popular Christmas carols, examining the meaning of the lyrics, the relevant biblical passages, and the historical context of the carols. In thirteen chapters, Lawson-Jones discusses the history of carols and caroling, the Puritan dislike of Christmas, and the “golden age of carols” before devoting ten chapters to a carol each. Carols discussed include “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” "The Holly and the Ivy,” “Good King Wenceslas,” “The Coventry Carol” and two of my most favorites, “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Once in Royal David’s City.” Austen Christmas illustrates what the celebration of Christmas looked like during Jane Austen’s time (the Regency), before the advent of much of the traditions we associate with Christmas now, many of which began later, in the Victorian period. Topics addressed include dress, games, caroling, gift-giving, food (including recipes), and charity.

What do you like to read at Christmastime? Are any of my favorites your favorites too?

Adventures in Misshelving

When I was a teenager, I often "fixed" misshelved books when I found them in the bookstore. Usually this amounted to reorganizing the Star Trek novels that had gotten jumbled up and out of numerical order, but sometimes it meant snatching up a book that was in the entirely wrong section of the store and reshelving it where I thought it should go. This practice was born of an obsessive tendency (which I still have, but which I am now better at managing--yay adult levels of self-awareness!) and a particularly youthful pride in noticing that books were where they weren't supposed to be and knowing enough about where they were supposed to be that I could put them back. 

These days I know way more about books and publishing and where misshelved books probably ought to be than I did at thirteen, but while I value that knowledge, I don't think of it as something that makes me a special, special raindrop anymore. Perhaps that is why I almost never "fix" misshelved books anymore. I also know now that while I'm probably right about a book being where it ought not be, I might not be right in my assumption about where any particular bookstore thinks it should be. I've done enough volunteer work in the library to know that well-meaning patrons taking it upon themselves to reshelve books--and getting it wrong--account for many of the books that get lost. I suspect this is true in bookstores as well, especially when you take into consideration special displays and endcaps and the like. Or maybe my ability to leave wandering books alone grew from the delight I take in spotting the volumes that have escaped their homes and trying to figure out how they got to be so far afield.

Probably the most common reasons for a novel to end up resting lengthwise across the top of a row of business books is customers changing their minds about a purchase and not bothering to return the book to where they found it (or not remembering where that was--probably most people don't spend an hour or two in the bookstore every week, like I do). But I have another thought: if I find I need the restroom during a bookstore browse, I set any books I've already selected on top of a row of books that seems likely to remain undisturbed for a few minutes. (It baffles me why more bookstores don't put a small table or chair under their ubiquitous "No unpaid merchandise in the restrooms" signs.) I note the section where I've left them, come back to them after I'm through attending nature, and carry on with my browse. I have never yet come back to find my books not where I left them. If I come across such small stacks myself, I refrain from moving them as I see them as a discrete "I'm just in the loo; I"ll be right back" signal. Perhaps I'm the only one who does this, but I kind of doubt it.

Of course, I still have the odd moment of weakness. The other day I was browsing the Agatha Christie books and noticed that every one was on a single shelf--save one title. As there was room on the first shelf (naturally, since I had removed a few to take home with me), I shifted that title up to join its peers. Can't have the poor thing sitting all alone, now can we? And if I notice one book by a certain author misshelved a few books away from the rest of the books by that author, I arrange them so they are all together. Surely that's just good manners. I once came across an illustrated guide to sex positions in the children's section. That I trotted right back to where it belonged. I don't know if someone was trying to make trouble or simply set it down by mistake, but I like to think I saved somone's mom or dad that day from a conversation they weren't ready to have.

My absolute favorite misshelved book, however, I came across in one of our local Barnes and Nobles: in the sci-fi and fantasy section, a copy of the Bible. I can only assume this was someone's idea of a snicker, and well played you, haha. I almost moved it but then decided, no. It was a curiosity. Let it lie, let the integrity of this store’s particular misshelves stand. I first noticed it seven months ago. It's still there.

A Local Bookish Light in the Coming Darkness

Writing last week's post about Barnes and Noble and my love of bookstores reminded me it was time to poke the interwebs to see if any new bookstores have opened in my area. I do this every once in a while, usually with only the smallest glimmer of hope. I mean, I do read the local paper, and our city being a pretty small one, they do report pretty thoroughly on new businesses opening up. (Our paper is cutting edge, shut up.)

But lo! This time there was a hit for a store I hadn't heard about. I clicked some links, waiting to find out it was the kind of specialty shop I have no interest in: antique guns and old local maps and every book on military history ever written! ...Actually, that sounds kind of interesting, now I think on it, but it doesn't really fall in the same category as a general interest bookstore. 

But no! New and used books, the links said. Downtown, the directions said. I grumbled a little about the downtown part (one way streets, hassle-y parking), but I girded my endsheets and screwed up my French flaps and set out to find this newcomer. After getting "lost" (I knew where I was, just not where I was in relation to where I wanted to be) and navigating the narrowest parking garage in Virginia (probably), and walking in the wrong direction for half a block (I'm more of a country kind of a person, okay?), I found the bookstore!

Ya'll, this is the tiniest, most excellent bookstore I have ever seen. If this space was larger than my living room, I'll eat my blog. (Shh, I don't know how I would do that either. Shhh.) So their depth of stock was, like, not, but what a delight it was to browse their shelves. Classics, picture books, YA, thrillers, general fiction, sff, local authors, and general nonfiction all had their little sections of the store, and the books on offer were both highly desirable titles and in excellent shape. (I broke my book-buying ban, guys. I had to. Local store, must support. That I broke it about 2.5 times more thoroughly than was probably necessary is a fact we just won't linger over.) Only one person was staffing the store (I don't think there would have been room for anyone else), and we had the best chat about the books I'd selected, the store itself, and events they had coming up. 

After the not-great news coming out of B&N Land, this was such a nice little lift up. While this store wouldn't could replace a Barnes & Noble-shaped hole in my life, it goes a long way to making me a wee bit less verklempt about the apparently (?) impending (?) doom (?) of Barnes and Noble. I will be doing my level best to brave the wilds of downtown and use some of my monthly allowed book purchases to support them with my dollars. 

Ominous Changes Come to Barnes and Noble

If you are elbows-deep in books news like I am, you've almost certainly heard about the recent layoffs at Barnes and Noble and the subsequent speculation about what they mean for the future of the bookseller. The news doesn't seem to be bubbling up too far into the mainstream, however, so here's a quick summary of what's happened, a round-up of pieces about it, and a few of my thoughts about the situation for your very much perusing pleasure.

The Sitch:

Reports are that last Monday (12 February 2018), full-time Barnes and Noble employees across the country arrived at work to learn that they had been laid off. Reports differ about whether/how good severance packages offered were, and some laid-off employees have said that they were told they would be welcome to apply for part-time positions in a few weeks. Consensus seems to be that the lay offs came without warning. The first articles I read about the lay offs identified the jobs cut as lead cashiers, digital leads, and receiving managers. As more information came out, it sounds like B&N has fired all or nearly all of their full-time store employees nation-wide.

The Links:

*At Fortune, Barnes and Noble Is Laying Off Workers Amid Declining Sales

*At Publisher's Weekly, B&N to Save $40 Million Following New Layoffs

*On Tumblr, by a former employee, The Entirely Unnecessary Demise of Barnes & Noble

*From Book Riot, podcast episode 248, No Heroes, from 12:59 through 38:00

My Thoughts

Ouch, you guys. I don't see any way to look at this where it isn't bad news for book lovers. First, and most importantly, there's the human cost of the lay off. I know that lay offs aren't a new thing and that it's a reality for many, many people that they show up for work one day and find out there *is* no work. Knowing that doesn't make me feel any better about the several thousand people who just lost jobs that I valued them doing. Just, jeez.

Beyond that, my thoughts basically boil down into three main categories.

First: What does this mean for Barnes and Noble?
Of the many things I am not, near the top of the list is a business person. I wouldn't have the first notion how to run the business of a bookstore, never mind a bookstore chain, but I think any time a company dumps near-as-makes-no-difference all of their full-time, experienced employees, that's bad news bears for the company. 

Specifically, the employees that B&N has fired are the most knowledgeable employees, the employees most likely to be able to help customers choose books or help them solve problems on their Nooks. The people who are gone are the people who knew the most about helping customers in a bookstore. You can train just about anybody to look up inventory, point someone in the right direction, and run a cash register. You need knowledgeable, experienced people to help you find the perfect read for your aunt Sally who likes to knit and read about murder. The people who would have been best situated to do that at B&N are the people they just fired. 

That being the case, I'm expecting B&N as we know it will not be around much longer. Either they are in a spiral into failure and will be gone entirely in the near future (in this scenario, I assume these lay offs are a last gasp, not something anyone thought was a good idea in terms of how to run a bookstore) or they are looking to reinvent their stores, making them into something more like the grocery store, maybe. "We have stuff, we can point you to the stuff, but don't ask me how best to do up a Sunday roast." 

Second: What does this mean for book selling in America?
I mean, again, this is not my bailiwick. I envision some scenarios, though.

Maybe B&N carries on much as it has and it turns out not that many people were using the experience of those employees after all. (I doubt it, though. I think this is one of the primary reasons people go to a bookstore rather than ordering online.)

Maybe B&N reinvents themselves into a leaner version of what they are now and they become a more robust competitor for Amazon. Depending on what that leaner version looked like, this might be all right. More competition is good. Keeping brick and mortar bookstores open is good. 

Maybe B&N goes out of business and that sparks a resurgence in independent bookstores, causing already existing ones to thrive and more to open. Thumbs up. I'm not holding my breath on this one, though, honestly. I'm trying to imagine being a prospective small business owner and saying, "The chain failed in this market so obviously I will do great!" and I'm having a hard time picturing it.

Maybe B&N fails and another existing chain jumps in to take over many of their stores. Eh? Better than a stick in the eye, I guess. Also, how enthused I was about this would depend a lot on which chain did the jumping in. 

Maybe B&N fails and Amazon has less competition and the brick and mortar bookstore becomes even rarer. *sigh* I fear this is the road we are on, and I'm not about it. I think Amazon has a place in a robust book-selling market, but the fewer other choices we have, the worse off we are, I'd say. Also, while I imagine a lot of Barnes and Nobles are located in neighborhoods that have other options for book-getting (libraries, Targets, easy delivery by UPS or USPS, etc), book deserts are a thing, and even if closing stores aren't in places that most need better access to books, losing 600+ stores nationwide certainly isn't going to help.

Third: What does this mean for me?
Obviously I'm not an impartial observer here. I'm hugely invested in there being a bookstore in, if not my neighborhood, then at least my town. In my town, B&N is the only store selling primarily books that are primarily new. (Target has books; we have a used bookstore; we have no independent.) Going to the bookstore is a major thread in the fabric of my life. I don't just like to read, I like to go to the bookstore. I like to browse the shelves, I like to look at what's new, I like to pick up a book and read a little of it before I buy it, check out the font, the feel of the object in my hand. I know I'm not alone in this, but I know I'm almost certainly not the average book buyer either. But it isn't just those of us who are into the objectiness of the books who will lose out if there aren't any bookstores to go into. Browsing, in the way one can do in a store, cannot be replicated online. Or at least it has not yet been done so. You can browse online, but it is not browsing, it is not the kind of discovery that I revel in when all the books are lines up before me in neat, real rows. Is that a romanticized view of the bookstore? Yes, definitely, a bit. But it is also true.

And While I'm Wishing, I'd Also Like a Pony

As a book lover and a bookstore lover, this is what I'd love to see Barnes and Noble do. There may be a floppity gillion business-y reasons why none of this would work, but it's what I'd like, in my dreamland bookshop of bliss:

*Give the books pride of place in the store. Don't make me walk through umpty-dump displays of stuff before I get to them. Especially get the Nook display away from the front door. I have no problem with ebooks or with a bookstore having an ereader and staff who can sell it to customers and help them use it or troubleshoot it. But let the bookstore be a bookstore, not an electronics store. Put the Nook counter off to the side somewhere easy to find. Don't make me walk around it to get to the physical books.

*Continue to sell coffee but reduce the cafe seating. Use some of the saved space to maintain a better depth of stock and to...

*Provide scattered clusters of comfortable seating throughout the store. You want people to browse and stay a while looking at your products. Give them somewhere to rest a moment and further consider their potential purchases. Allow customers to take their covered drinks into the stacks to seek out that comfortable seating. Now they are enjoying their coffee in eye-line of a book they might buy instead of segregated in a separate section of the store where they might not see another thing for sale other than the drink they are sipping.

*Provide an easy-to-access, customer-friendly in-store computerized method of checking the store's stock. Include a way within this system for customers to see where the book is in that store. If the employees can see that the book is supposed to be on an end-cap in Fiction, customers should be able to see that too.

*Bring back New Releases Shelving. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: shelving the new releases among all the stock instead of separating them out is a terrible idea. The fastest way to make me click a button on Amazon rather than coming to your store is to make browsing in your store hard. Shelving the new releases this way makes browsing in your store hard.

*Reduce the amount of stuff in the store that is not books. Fewer toys, fewer games, fewer puzzles, fewer gifts, less stationary. Not none. A nice selection of unique items in all of these lines seems like a perfect accompaniment to books. But streamline it. Make it take up less space.

*Increase depth of stock. Obviously some titles are never going to be worth keeping in stock because it is so unlikely that anyone will buy them. But do better. Expand the romance, mystery, and SFF sections. Consider splitting SFF into separate science fiction and fantasy sections. Make it a policy to keep the first book of any series you carry in stock at all times. Get in stock backlist titles by authors who have new books coming out. 

*For the love of all printed matter, get new releases on the shelves by opening time on Tuesday mornings. Nothing is worse than dropping by to pick up a new release you've been waiting for for months only to find that you don't have it yet.

*In short, be a bookstore above all else. I feel a little flippant here, I'll be honest, but I wonder if the answer to competing in the current bookish marketplace isn't trying to be a little bit of everything but being the one thing bookish people can't get online: a pleasant, quietish place to browse and discover and linger.


I don't actually want a pony don't nobody give me a pony.

Gratitude and Joy: Amazon Prime and Giving Gifts

Gratitude and Joy: Day 21

I am grateful for:

Amazon Prime
If I have a little complicated feeling about Barnes and Noble, I have a big complicated feeling about Amazon. But let me tell ya, Prime is a godsend. We originally signed up for it when we were using a special cat litter that was supposed to be helping one of our elderly cats with box issues. That litter was not reliably available in town and was way cheaper online. We're no longer doing that, but we've kept the Prime after realizing just how many times we've trekked out to the strip mall wasteland for some non-food domestic item, come away frazzled and empty-handed, then found the thing in seconds on Amazon and had it two days later. So I continue to feel some kind of a complicated way about Amazon (the effect on local economies! the environmental impact of all that shipping! the cardboard boxes that end up in my garage!), but for the moment I'm grateful to live in a world where quick shipping of stuff is an option.


I feel joy:

Giving Gifts
I love giving gifts. I love making note of what folks seem to be into and then hunting down the right related gift. I love wrapping presents and picking out just the right tag and ribbon to put on the package. I love thinking about the joy I hope that package and its contents are going to bring the recipient. I love hearing that the gift did indeed bring that joy. Love it, love it, love it. I know lots of people get frustrated with the commercialism and the gimmes that can come with the Christmas season, but I am a happy little nurturer with so many opportunities to try to bring a little happiness to loved ones.

Gratitude and Joy: Barnes and Noble and My Grandmother's Clock

Gratitude and Joy: Day 18

I am grateful for:

Barnes and Noble
Ah, Barnes and Noble. I have a little bit of a complicated feeling about B&N. I would rather shop in a lovely independent book store, both because I usually enjoy the atmosphere in independents more and because I like the idea of supporting small businesses, especially small bookish businesses. But we don't have an independent book store. We have a lovely used book store, which I do support, but our independent closed several years ago. Given my brick and mortar options for new books are B&N or nothing, I do chose B&N. And the thing is, I like our B&N. It's familiar and decently cozy and a fair number of the staff recognize me when I come in. I am the sort of person who prefers to browse in person for books, and I like to do it fairly regularly. And I'm pretty keenly aware of what it would be like to have no chain bookstore either. I lived through that for a while right after Borders closed down all its stores. (Ironically at that time I lived in a town that did have an independent bookstore, but a less inviting shop with more cranky, snobby staff you'd be hard pressed to find, so I mostly avoided going there.) I've never experienced a real book desert (I always could go into the Snarky Store), but I had just a sharp enough glimpse of the possibility of one to be grateful that our Barnes and Noble, chain that it is, impersonal as it can sometimes feel, continues to chug along.

I feel joy around:

Grandma's Clock
When my grandparents moved into a smaller house, they gave some of their things to various members of the family. I got a lovely wall clock with spiffy pendulum action. It's gotten pride of place in the living room anywhere I've lived since, and it feels like home to see it, ticking away. 

But Where Are The New Releases?

I spend what some might call an absurd amount of time in Barnes and Noble. I love books and bookstores, B&N is the only bookstore selling new books in town (though we do have an excellent used bookstore as well), and my favorite of our two B&Ns is right next to the grocery store in which I most often do my shopping. I mean, I can practically not not go in there at least once a week, right? Right.

This habit is not great for my wallet (or our groaning bookshelves--okay, or for my desire to have a less ginormous TBR (*whispers* even by the most conservative count, it's in the 500s)), but it does mean I'm really familiar with the store. It's not uncommon for me to walk in there, stop, squint, and go, "Huh, they moved that little table to the left of the paperback table what had the cookbook display on it." I notice things. And you maybe now are catching on that when I saw I'm in the store a lot, I mean a lot. So the recent flurry of shelf jockying that's been going on in there the last few months certainly hasn't escaped my notice. I'm not in the store often enough to know exactly where it started (whole days go by where I don't set foot in the joint, you guys), but I first noticed it in the genres: the mystery section, the sci-fi section, the romance section. And I have to tell you, I'm not best pleased at what I saw.

They're taking away the New Releases Shelves.

They are. taking away. the New Releases Shelves.

Why, I ask you? Why?

I asked one of the friendly booksellers too. I didn't get much of an answer, just that it's a decision from corporate (I mean, natch), and that, apparently, a lot of the managers thinks it's a great idea.

Well, bully.

I have never worked in a bookstore, so I don't really know how they work, but I've gleaned enough about how they work to know that if you've never worked in one, you don't know how they work. But I have some ideas about why people running one might like to do away with those new releases shelves at the front of each individual section in the store. Firstly, I imagine it makes it easier to shelve the books: it's just Section, Alphabetical Order now, rather than Section, New Release?, Alphabetical Order. Secondish, it miiiight save space in the section? The new releases were all shelved cover out, what takes up more room than spine out. I was told (and I've observed) that the new releases will still be shelved cover out within each section, but I still suspect that overall some space is gained. Thirdesque, customers looking for a new release may be more inclined to browse more of the section than if all the new releases were shelved together. Oh yes, I can think of reasons why it makes sense.

BUT I HATE IT.

That was my knee-jerk reaction when I first saw what they were doing at B&N, and then, eventually, I thought that it would be annoying for a bit and then be just fine. It's been a bit now. The reshelve has hit all the store sections (or at least all the ones I ever browse--which is most of them, though not all), and I've been browsing the store with this new configuration in some of my favorite sections for weeks. I still hate it. I want the new releases in any one section all in one place. That's how I find them. If I'm going to learn something new in the bookstore about what's out, browsing a New Release Section is how that's going to happen. I have lots of other ways of finding out about new releases, but nothing beats that sense of discovery in the bookstore itself. That just can't happen when everything that's new is shuffled in among everything that was on the shelf the last time I was in the store, and the time before that, and the time before that.

I've already noticed that my trips to B&N are shorter than they used to be. I often have something in mind when I stop by. In the past, I'd look for that book and then spend half an hour browsing the New Releases Shelves in my favorite sections. Now, I go look for the particular item, then wander over to Sci-Fi or Romance or Fiction or what-have-you, wrinkle my nose at the shelves that used to contain the new releases (and which are labeled as if they still do), half-heartedly try to scan for those covers-out books, then give up, and leave. Bummer. Bummer for me, and, honestly, bummer for B&N. I can't browse what I want to browse, so I'm not finding books I want, so I'm not buying books I find. I doubt I will ever stop going to B&N, because I like just being in a bookstore, but I bet a fair number of people will, especially readers who shop mostly in the mystery and romance section. If all you want to know is whether any of the authors you follow have a new book out this week, how long are you going to keep going to a store that forces you to scan eight shelves for each author's name rather than gathering everything that's new on one shelf? It is so easy to just click that Amazon.com link, isn't it?

 I still don't know why Barnes and Noble has gone this route (I don't think they are alone; if memory serves, Books-A-Million has had their stores set up this way for awhile). Maybe there's a really good reason for it; maybe it's going to help keep them in business for years and years and years. If that's the case, yay! I want them around, even if my pleasure in shopping there has been diminished. But I have a hard time seeing the consumer-facing benefit here. Among the appeals of going to a brick-and-mortar store over online (including supporting a business in your town, interacting with other human beings, and being able to pick up the books and look at them before you buy), one of the best is browsing the shelves for what's new rather than just typing in what you're looking for and making tracks. As far as I can see, B&N is just making it harder to enjoy what makes them appealing in the first place.