I just read another obituary for a great book store: Duttons, in the Los Angeles Times. It struck home, as sometime in the next few days I will be visiting the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago. It is a wonderful place for jazz nerds like me, and it is probably not long for this earth.
The independent bookstore is almost gone. The record store, independent or otherwise, is history. The business model that works these days is that of Barnes and Noble, Borders, and their low budget competitors, Hastings and Books A Million. These chains have cornered the market on books, CDs, and DVDs. Privileged, pretty people in urban Bohemias can cry all they want, but the chains have brought books and music to places like Saint Joseph Missouri and Jonesboro Arkansas, where once there were only paperback racks and card shops.
The other thing that has done in the record store and quaint little book store is, of course, the internet. In the last few years I have put together a jazz library that would have been impossible, at almost any price, a few decades ago. Last Christmas I gave my brother a great gift: Amon Duul II, Hijack, a German rock group CD. I snagged the last copy from an independent store on the Web, after years of trying to find it. He couldn't quite believe his eyes when he tore off the rapping paper. It is stupid not to recognize this as progress. At least when it comes to recorded music, we are far richer than any generation in history. I am sure the same is true for books.
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