Laura Recommends. . . .

When a thing strikes me as particularly amusing or lovely or informative, I want other people to find it and be amused or love it or learn from it too. So in that spirit, recommendations for things I think will warp your starship (as it were). Onward!

Laura Recommends...

...a podcast: A Good Read

A production of the BBC, this show is hosted by Harriet Gilbert, who every week sits down with two guests to discuss the three books (one chosen by each of the guests and one by Gilbert) all three have read for the program. As far as I can see, the only criteria for the books is that the person who chooses it thinks it is "a good read," and as such there's a wonderful variety of kinds of books featured. Guests on the show also tend to be of diverse backgrounds, which is a delight. The show is on hiatus at the moment (I believe it comes back in June), but the archives contain years of episodes for your very much listening pleasure right now.

...a short, deep dive: Pantsuit Politics interviews a dairy farmer

I've recommended the podcast Pantsuit Politics before, but today I'm suggesting a segment of a particular episode. In the most recent episode, Beth interviewed Carilynn Coombs, who owns a dairy farm with her husband. They discuss how a dairy farm works--both the hands-on farming parts and the business, administrative side--and the state of milk production and distribution in the US and why so many small dairies are in trouble. It's fascinating and important. Start at minute 24:05 to hear just the interview. It runs for about forty minutes.

...a TV show: Chef's Table

Chef's Table is a documentary Netflix original. Each episode (about an hour long) is a portrait of a world-renowned chef. These are absolutely fascinating and deeply compelling investigations of creativity, genius, ambition, and set-back. (As the chefs are from all over the world, there is often some wonderful photography of various landscapes, street markets, etc.) While the style of the show remains consistent from episode to episode (it's easy to tell you're watching Chef's Table and not some other show), beyond that there's little in the way of format to the way the episodes are presented. Usually there are some brief "talking heads" snippets with people who know the chef who is the subject of the episode and there are always a few close-ups of some signature dishes, but otherwise each episode's structure is dictated by the life and interests of the chef in the episode. All the episodes seem to go together, but no two feel alike. This distinction keeps the show fresh. I've never seen an installment that wasn't good, but I particularly recommend Volume 1, episode 3, and Volume 2, episode 1 and episode 5. Be aware that Volume 2, episode 1, contains some potentially upsetting/triggering discussion of cancer.

...an audiobook: The Uncommon Reader

This 2007 novella about Queen Elizabeth II discovering the joys of reading is a delight in print, but the audio book, which the author, Alan Bennett, reads himself, is just superb. It's funny and insightful and will make you think about reading and life and duty. I've both read and listened to the book, and Bennett's narration definitely adds a little something to the experience. At just under two and a half hours, it's perfect for listening to in one go, perhaps during an afternoon lie-about in the hammock or a car trip. 

...a curiosity in the publishing world: Romance Author Trademarks "Cocky", Romance Community Responds 

Recently a romance author trademarked the word "cocky," claiming other authors' use of the word was infringing on her brand, a series of books using "cocky" in the series title. The romance community is... not happy. This is amusing from the outside, but it's causing a good deal of anxiety and loss of sales (and thus money, obviously) for several independently published romance authors who have received cease and desist letters. That the author received the trademark is also a fairly concerning precedent. This story is continuing to develop, so if you're, like, *super* interested, follow the hashtag #cockygate on Twitter.

Reviewing the Book of the Month Club

If you hang out on Litsy or in other bookish places, chances are good you've seen a lot of swooning over "BOTM" at the beginning of every month. BOTM is the Book of the Month Club, a monthly book subscription service that first started in 1926 and relaunched in 2015 in a modern, online-based format. I got worn down by all the shiny posts and enthusiasm I was seeing about BOTM and finally subscribed last summer. Now that I've been a member for well over six months, I thought I'd write up my experience for anyone considering a membership.

How It Works:
Membership in BOTM is $14.99 per month, for which you can choose any one of the five selected books for the month (announced on the first of each month). Membership also allows you to choose up to two extras per month (from previous month's selections) for $9.99 each. BOTM will never ship you a book you did not choose. If you don't want any of the five selections for the month, you can skip the month on the website; doing so means you will not be charged for that month and nothing will be sent to you. If you do not choose a book but don't actively skip the month, you will be charged the $14.99 and will receive a credit that you can use at a later date for any book on the site. (There's a small catch to this bit, which I will discuss in my cons section below.)

The Books, Content:
BOTM books are recently released titles (often within a few weeks of the date they first become available at BOTM; sometimes a book is available at BOTM before its publication date, in which case BOTM members who select that book will usually have it before it is available in stores.) The books include fiction and nonfiction, and there is usually a good diversity of genres within each month's five selections. In my experience, the books are typically mysteries/thrillers, literary fiction, "beach reads," and general nonfiction. Occasionally I've seen a sci-fi or fantasy selection, but never a romance (some "woman's fiction" (picture the face I'm making at this term, go on, picture it), which often shares some tropes and plot expectations with romance, but). Most of the genre fiction, though not all, at BOTM is of the type that comfortably crosses over, at least a bit, with general fiction. They are usually books that you will be hearing people talk about in the weeks to come (although to what degree that, itself, is attributable to them being BOTM selections, I don't know.) They will be good books, and mainstream books, is what I'm saying, but mostly of a few types.

The Books, as Objects:
When I was a kid, there were a number of Book of the Month Club editions kicking around my parents' and grandparents' houses, from much earlier incarnations of the club. They were easy to pick out because they were special editions for the club and their format (and often cover design) was different from the edition of the same book you could have bought in a bookstore. This is no longer the case with BOTM titles. They are special editions printed especially for BOTM, but their overall formatting and design is nearly identical to the edition of the book you would buy from B&N, Amazon, your local independent, and so on.

The minor differences between a BOTM edition and editions sold elsewhere include: 

*The coloring on the boards (all BOTM editions are hardcovers) of the books themselves may be slightly different from editions in stores. My BOTM edition of Circe has black boards with a vertical orange strip encasing the spine. The edition in stores does not have the orange strip. All of the BOTM editions I have received have two-toned boards like this; I can only specifically comment on the comparison to store editions for Circe, as it is the only title I've seen in both editions. But at a guess I'd say the two-tone boards are a feature of the BOTM editions.

*BOTM editions carry dust jackets in the same design as books appearing in stores except that the BOTM logo appears in the upper right-hand corner of the front of the dust jacket and on the top of the spine of the dust jacket. BOTM editions also carry no paratext on the back of the dust jacket (no blurbs or descriptions, as might appear on the edition sold elsewhere) and instead say "I love BOTM," with "BOTM" appearing inside a heart. The month and year that the title was a selection on BOTM are listed underneath this inscription.

*The BOTM logo is embossed on the front board and any embossing that might usually appear on books by the publisher of the title will be missing. The BOTM logo is also embossed on the top of the spine.

*BOTM editions feel light for their size. My guess is that they are printed on thinner and/or lighter weight paper than most hardcovers. The paper does not, however, feel cheap. It is certainly  not noticeably thin to the touch. The ink does not come off on one's fingers, as often happens with cheaply printed books, such as some mass market paperbacks.

Overall, BOTM editions are pleasing objects. They also look nice lined up next to one another on a shelf.

Pros of Membership:
Overall, I'd say my experience with BOTM has been positive. As I see it, these are the highlights of Book of the Month as a subscription service:

*The books are inexpensive. Barring special deals or promotions, you're going to have a hard time finding a brand new hardcover for $14.99 anywhere else. Prices on Amazon are rarely that low for hardcover new releases (in my experience, new books priced in the ~27 dollar range don't usually go lower than ~17 on Amazon in the days right around the release). The same hardcover at B&N, if it is part of their 30% off new releases program and if you are also a member (10% discount) and if you have a good coupon (20% off) and if you have their credit card that gives you a 5% rebate on your bill, that $27 dollar book, after tax, would come to ~$13.75. So if the stars align, you might could do better on price than BOTM, but it's not super likely. 

*The website is slick. It's bright and pleasant and really easy to use. It's completely intuitive how to add books to your box, how to ship the box, and how to skip a month. It's also pretty user friendly for finding answers to questions you might have, including how to "unskip" a month if you change your mind. The website works equally well on a computer and a mobile device.

*The books arrive very nicely packaged. They come in an instantly recognizable flip-top box and the book/s inside are shrink wrapped for protection. I have never had a BOTM book arrive with a squished spine or a torn dusk jacket. (These days, it's about 60/40 at our house whether books from Amazon will arrive at least mildly damaged, so this is a bit of big deal for me.) Each order comes with a BOTM bookmark. If you're into that kind of thing, you can very easily make opening your BOTM box a small event. Especially if you're using BOTM as a kind of treat for yourself, this is a nice touch. The boxes are also great for storing small items under a bed or in a closet and are the perfect size for sending books through the mail. (Natch, as that's what they were designed for.) If you frequently send books as gifts or exchange reads with friends or family members, a small perk of your BOTM membership would be this monthly supply of the perfect boxes for winging those books on their way.

*The BOTM website has a forum for discussing each of the selections from every month. I have not used this feature, but if you want to discuss your book after reading it, that element is there. There's also a pretty active contingent of BOTM members on Litsy who share about their BOTM picks. If you're looking for an online social aspect to your reading, BOTM could help you find it.

*The books are titles people want to read. Obviously no selection of five books is ever going to please everyone every time, but the BOTM picks are never dregs or strange outliers. You may well come across a book you otherwise wouldn't, but I never feel like the selections are poor.

Cons of Membership:
It's not all rose hips and juniper berries at BOTM. I have almost cancelled my membership a handful of times--mostly for personal, idiosyncratic reasons--but here are my top bugaboos about BOTM:

*I don't love to read hardcovers. BOTM books are always hardcovers. *shrug* I mean, it is what it is, and most books come out in hardcover first. If you want a new release while it's still a new release, hardcover is usually what you got. But I prefer paperback so much and I have so many unread books in my house that I often find myself considering canceling BOTM just because the books aren't in the format I prefer. This one is really down to personal taste, but I'll give you this to chew on too: they're new release hardcovers but they aren't first editions. If you like hardcovers and any part of that has to do with collector-y interest in first editions and/or first printings, your BOTM membership isn't going to help you out there. A BOTM edition is its own separate thing in that sense.

*If you want to skip a month, you have to hit that "skip" button on the website by a certain date (usually the sixth of the month). If you don't do that, you get charged for the month but get no book. That charge gets you a credit you can use later. That's fair enough, I guess, although it used to be that simply not choosing a book skipped the month for you and you didn't get charged. That extra step seems to be designed to net BOTM some cash from forgetful members, especially if they keep forgetting and never use those credits. 

*Every month you have the option of adding up to two extra books to your box at a discount ($9.99). This is a great deal dollar-wise. But there's a small catch. You can only add "extra" books if you choose one of the five books selected for the month. If you don't like any of the five for a given month, there is no way to choose an older book instead. You can only snag those older books as add-ons when you pick a selection of the month. I really wish you could just pick any available book (from the current selections and past selections) for your $14.99, but alas.

*Sometimes I go months on end without seeing a book in the monthly selections that I want. This is all about personal taste, of course, and I can just keep skipping months until something shows up I'm excited about, but it can be a bit of a letdown when all five picks make you go, "Bleh."

Who Should Join BOTM?
I think BOTM is an excellent subscription service for the right kind of reader. I'd recommend BOTM to anyone who would like to keep up with new releases without have to keep up with new releases. I'd also recommend it for anyone who likes to read (or maybe who used to and would like to get back into it) but isn't sure what to read or where to start. BOTM will drop five new releases into your email on the first of every month and boom! you have suggestions for your reading for the next few weeks. For anyone who is looking for a low-key, online book club vibe, BOTM might scratch that itch. It's pretty much guaranteed that a decent number of other people will be reading the same thing you are at the same time you are, and between the BOTM forums and BOTM members on other bookish websites, you should be able to find those people easily. Also, anyone who just loves book mail should enjoy BOTM. If you fit any of those descriptions, I think there's a strong chance you'll fine BOTM worth your time and dollars.

I don't recommend BOTM to readers who are trying to reduce their TBRs (BOTMs will pile up unread just like any other book purchases), anyone who strongly prefers reading in paperback or ebook, readers who are likely to forget to check the BOTM selection and hit that "skip" button if they don't want a book that month, and folks who prefer to read mostly in a genre not strongly represented at BOTM (such as romance, sci-fi, fantasy, specific nitty-gritty nonfiction topics, and cozy mysteries).

If any of you decide to try BOTM (or if you're already a member), let me know how it goes!

My BOTMs, showing the features of BOTM editions as discussed above. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and The Stranger in the Woods are shown naked with their dust jackets attending. (Click photo to embiggen.)

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.

What to Do with Problem Books?

In the past few months, several scandals have hit the book/publishing world involving revelations about the behavior of several authors. Other writers and commentators have investigated the myriad reactions of readers to these events and the various implications they have for publishing, and I do not feel like I have anything particularly useful to add to those excellent conversations. Here I would like to talk about a very specific piece of the fallout for readers when an author suddenly feels unworthy of one's attention, but if you would like to dive into the issues themselves, here are some links:

*Sherman Alexie accused of harrassment
*Book Riot Podcast discussion of harassment allegations in children's publishing (start at minute 11:30)
*Santino Hassell accused of catfishing (NSFW: language; TW: emotional abuse)
*Riptide's Statement about Hassell
*When in Romance podcast discussion of Hassell (minute 4:45-17:05)
*The Hopeless Romantic podcast discussion of Hassell and Riptide Publishing (NSFW: language; TW: sexual and emotional abuse)

Right. Now. What do I want to talk about? It's a minor consideration in the face of an ocean of feels including disgust and disappointment toward an author, empathy for victims, distrust of aspects of the publishing industry, and personal questions for readers about how to feel about beloved texts that now seem tainted. But it's a problem I've been considering now for a couple of weeks: What will I do with books I no longer wish to own because I no longer want to have anything to do with the author? 

This particular spate of revelations has not involved any authors whose work is deeply meaningful to me personally, so I have not yet had to grapple with changing feelings about a book that means a lot to me. And I think this is a very real, very important issue. Books matter. They matter because they show us ourselves when we thought we were the only one. They matter because they show us people and worlds we otherwise might never begin to understand. They matter because they help us through difficult times. So if a book that mattered, a book that got me through something, or helped me realize something about myself, turned out to have been written by someone engaging in behavior I find reprehensible, that would make me feel some kind of way. Given the apparent prevalence of such behavior in our societies and how much I read, I suspect someday I will be writing a blog post about what that feeling turns out to be. But for today, I am wondering only about the practical. I now have some books in my possession that didn't matter much to me (in many cases which I hadn't yet had a chance to read) and which I would no longer like to own. 

My recent experiences with trying to keep my bookshelves from taking over the entire house mean that I have some go-to options for ridding myself of unwanted books. There's a nice used book store in town that will buy select used books in good condition; there's another one that will take select used books for store exchange. Our library is always in need of donations. So is the Goodwill. I have friends and family and fellow book club members I sometimes pass books on to if I have no more need for them. Supposedly there are some Little Free Libraries in town where I could drop books off for others in my community to find. All of these are great destinations for books that have served their purpose, for books I'm happy to let go out into the world and be the right book for someone else even if they are no longer the right book for me. But these seem like wrong choices for books I don't want anymore because it turns out their authors have engaged in garbage behavior I can't look past. I don't donate expired food to the food bank; I don't want to donate books that feel nasty to the library.

Practically speaking, I guess, a book is just paper and glue. I could throw them away. Better yet, I could recycle them. (Some books even have a note on the copyright page indicating that they are suitable for recycling. This note always draws me up short. No one drops their book in the recycling bin after they turn the last page, surely? There are so many better ways to "recycle" most books.) Neither of these options feels exactly appropriate either. I try not to over-romanticize books and I try not to anthropomorphize them and I try not to conflate a physical book with the flesh-and-blood human who wrote it. Dropping a novel in the trash is not tossing a human out with the garbage, but darn if I still don't feel comfy thinking about doing it. 

I haven't been able to come up with a great solution to this small problem that feels right to me. (I'm sure there are other people who would (who have) literally trashed books for these sorts of reasons, and hey, you do you. Probably there are also other people who have donated such books to the library or what have you. It isn't, after all, the donator's responsibility to look out for the donatee's sensibilities when it comes to reading material. I'm not here to judge, but *I* can't do it.) So for now, the books in question are tucked away behind other books on my shelves, their spines turned in. They get to carry on existing, but I don't have to look at them. In this case, it's an example of out of sight, very much still on my mind.

Loving Picture Books as a Grown Human

Until recently, I have paid no attention whatever to children's picture books--and the last time I had looked at one with any interest was certainly sometime in my own childhood. But with the birth of my cousin's two little girls--the only children born to my generation in my family with whom I have any real contact--I started picking up picture books again, at first simply to find gifts for my baby cousins, but as time went on and they got older and graduated from board books to glossy picture books, for my own reading as well. 

In the beginning, I didn't pay all that much attention (I'll tell you what--despite my new appreciation for picture books, the baby board book is, I think, still interesting pretty much only to its primary audience), but a couple of years ago I was staying with my parents for a few weeks and found my mom's shelf of picture books she keeps around for when those cousin babies (to her, grand-niece babies, of course) come around. And I sat down with a stack of them and wiled away an hour or so. And what a delightful hour it was. Some of the books thrilled me because of their illustrations, some for the whole package, the way story and pictures worked together. And I felt I was definitely filling a hole, if a small one, in my reading life with those picture books. And not one born of nostalgia, not really--none of the books I read that afternoon were leftovers from my own childhood (though a few of those *are* kicking around). No, it was just the joy of picking up a story, and reading it in one go, and pausing after every few sentences to take in an illustration of what the sentences were saying. It was fun, and relaxing, and plain nice.

So I read picture books now. Since I have no children of my own and live too far away from my little cousins to share books with them regularly, I read whatever strikes my fancy (and I never have to read the same book over and over and over, which I gather is a hazard which comes with sharing the delight of books with young children). Mostly I take the books out of the library, sit down with a stack, and read them one after the other--just as I did that first time with the books from Mom's shelf. I love getting to read three or four or five stories right in a row and love the knowledge that if the first one doesn't wow me, I have another one on deck. I'm supporting my library in ways I wasn't before. I'm reading stories I never would have otherwise. I'm choosing books from a variety of lists of "bests," including bests from many communities and cultures I might otherwise not read much from. I feel like I'm winning all around.

The last time I picked up a stack of picture books at the library, several members of my book club were with me. To a one, they expressed confusion at my choice to read children's books without any children. I tried to explain, but just got weird looks. Ah, what they are missing.

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.