April 23, 2004
Another One Bites The Dust
Sooz directed me to this post by the Accordion Guy, an out-of-towner who expresses the dismay and sadness many of us Bostonians feel about the demise of Avenue Victor Hugo, one of the last great used bookstores (or, in French, bouquinistes - see, you do learn something every day) in the Hub. He also includes the text of a list of the 12 Reasons for the death of independent bookstores all over the place. Go read it, it's fascinating and achingly true.
The Accordion Guy asks what the state of independents is. Here in Boston, the erstwhile Athens of America, we're down to about a double handful. Of course, my favorite is the Harvard Book Store, which had been my favorite even before they started paying me to spend my whole day there. For purely-used-books, we have the Brattle, McIntyre & Moore, and Rodney's, plus a handful of smaller joints that I'm often pleasantly surprised to stumble into.
The one thing Boston and environs has going for it is the number of independent niche stores. We have, in Harvard Square alone, Grolier's for poetry, the Globe Corner for maps and travel, Schoenhof's for foreign literature, Curious George for kids, Revolution Books for the seething left, James and Devon Gray for antiques, Pandemonium for sci-fi, and maybe a couple others I forgot. So it's not completely bleak...here. In the rest of the country, I fear bookstore browsing is going the way of so many of the things that make life interesting. And it's just sad. But I hope it makes you want to come to Cambridge and do a little shopping.
Posted by michaelf at April 23, 2004 10:23 PM | TrackBackComments
Here in Roslindale, we've got Pazzo Books:
Posted by: adamg at April 23, 2004 10:51 PM
