Letter to the editor today in the Wall Street Journal. It far more aptly describes the bookstores I like to remember than Mr. Birkerts' essay I posted on a few days ago. In the letter, Mr. Mirabile of Philadelphia say of bookstores:
"A bookstore browser expects freedom and, despite the public setting, some basic privacy. No Big Brother scrutinizes choices for thought crime, while the browser peruses this title or turns away from that. And the browser assumes that the books, unlike there digital substitutes, cannot be edited as they wait to be browsed. Reaching for a book is a symbolic and literal grasp at freedom, untethered to the whim of some cyber-gatekeepers."
This is the bookstore I like to remember. Being alone among the stacks, away from other people, surrounded by boundless sources of entertainment, and in some cases disappointment.
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