In a message dated 8/17/11 6:37:08 AM, healeys-request@autox.team.net
writes:
> While these excellent sites make finding books a snap, book collecting
> has
> lost some of its magic. Wandering through musty old bookshops has always
> been part of the appeal, but these money-losing places are closing down
> at an
> alarming rate. Now book finding has become a vending machine. Drop your
> coin
> in the slot and "clunk", out comes your food pellet.
>
> Peter
>
Too true, unfortunately. Another one of those memories of the way things
used to be. There were once two old book stores in our village (25,000 people)
alone, and I could always count on a nice hour or two first checking the
auto shelves (found some really interesting high school autoshop text books
that I still refer to all the time for basic explanations of points systems,
electrics trouble-shooting, etc. that I wouldn't have even known about), and
then chatting with the owner who would be sitting with his cat in an
overstuffed chair in the back of the shop.
Now it's gone the way of drive-in movies and comic book racks in the drug
store next to the soda fountain.
We didn't realize how good we had it during that brief halcyon period of
the 1950s and early 1960s after Korea and before Viet Nam.
G.
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