All things must pass.
Nothing has affected my life as the emergence of the Web. My work, family, intellectual, creative, and recreational, lives were all completely transformed. How I work, read, listen to music, watch movies, connect with friends, shop, cook, and repair things, are completely different today.
Inevitably, the Web has wreaked havoc on many of our existing institutions. For example, the book's place in our culture, and therefore, the viability of the bookstore, have been undermined.
I don't take this lightly and I don't celebrate it. I have always been a bookworm, and have almost always earned my living through some aspect of book culture.
When I was a kid I used to go downtown with my mother. She would head to Spadina to buy fabrics and I would head to the comic book stores, and then we’d rendez-vous at a tiny little diner called the Lite Bite. To a kid from Scarborough this urbane diversity was a revelation. That there seemed to be a special place designed just for me – the comic book store - was an even bigger revelation.
The comic stores were a gateway drug to bookstores. Over the years, I’ve fallen in love with many of them, and I’ve had a repeat of that “this was especially made for me” experience. I found myself spending hours, sometimes entire days, at Pages, This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, CineBooks, Letters, the Village Book Store, and many others. The World’s Biggest Bookstore, Chapters, and Indigo belong on the list, too.
I lament the passing of books, but I lament the passing of the bookstore even more. The love I have for printed books is now shared with various means of reading, writing and producing in an online world, but the social and urban function of the bookstore hasn’t been replaced by anything yet, unless I just can’t see it.
I realize there are still a handful of great bookstores. I don’t think the trend is going to reverse itself, however.
I’m not recommending that anything should be done: special days to try to convince people to shop in droves, interventions by government bodies, or block grants from the Canada Council.
Looking back, this day was almost inevitable the moment Tim Berners-Lee posted the first web page. I wouldn’t give all that up to save the bookstore as used to know it. I am sad to see it go, however, and remain optimistic that some new phenomenon capable of as much as culture-inspiring and city-building will eventually emerge from the ashes.
