[HN Gopher] Love the smell of old books? This bookseller would l...
___________________________________________________________________
Love the smell of old books? This bookseller would like you to
leave
Author : diodorus
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-07-20 12:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| _" [...] sense that there I'll find a book, as yet unknown to me,
| which to some degree will change my life."_
|
| In retrospect, and having felt that way, I realize that is an
| unreasonable hope. Very bad odds, if you even think it out for a
| bit.
|
| On the other hand, interesting entertainment is often one lucky
| find away.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I have a large-ish library (by personal standards) that spans
| multiple rooms in my small house. When I invite people over I
| will, without fail, get one of two responses:
|
| 1. "Wow, have you read all these books?" means "I never read
| books."
|
| 2. Scans shelves..."Oh that's a great book...I haven't heard of
| this author - any good?" means "I read a lot."
|
| I'm used to the books and don't get any pride from them but it's
| amazing how quickly you can tell how literate someone is by their
| behavior in even a small library.
| friendlyHornet wrote:
| > 1. "Wow, have you read all these books?" means "I never read
| books."
|
| How did you come to this generalisation?
|
| I read a lot and have asked that exact question to friends who
| have a very large library
|
| I also have several books in my library that I haven't gotten
| to reading or only briefly skimmed through parts of, so if
| someone asked me that question about library (which is only a
| few shelves, as the bulk of my books are on my kindle), my
| answer would be no
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't know, I like reading, I like books, and I like owning
| the books I am reading or have read (especially if I liked
| them). But I do have many books I _haven 't_ (yet) read, or
| have only partially read (especially textbooks and some
| biographies). It's a hobby I don't spend as much time on as I'd
| like.
|
| I have.. hundreds (I mean that literally - not tens, nor
| thousands; I don't know exactly the number) of books, a small
| number across a few rooms. Certainly fewer than you. Were I in
| your house, I might be inclined to ask if, like me, you
| slightly veer into ~hoarding~ collecting rather than having
| read them all; perhaps telling yourself you certainly will, as
| the backlog only grows ever longer, or whether I should feel
| ashamed because you actually _have_ read them all _and_ it 's a
| much larger hoard.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I have many books I haven't read. When I am exploring a
| subject, I'll often hear a subject matter expert say " _the_
| go-to text on this is $BOOK. " At that point, I buy the book
| if I have a reasonable expectation that I'll actually read
| it. Some books I only reference or read partially if the
| subject is pretty well divisible.
|
| I read a few tens of books per year but my queue is a couple
| years long. No big deal, I don't feel pressure to get through
| it.
| corrral wrote:
| > 1. "Wow, have you read all these books?" means "I never read
| books."
|
| There's a short story, I think in one of my New Hugo Winners
| volumes, in which a character responds to that question with
| something like, "who the hell wants a library full of books
| they've already read?!"
|
| But yes, that's definitely the kind of question only someone
| who doesn't read much would ask. A great tell.
|
| [EDIT] Or, I guess, maybe a kid from a certain kind of
| background, reader or not, which I think might have been the
| case in that story, but from an adult? Yeah, pretty good
| signal.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I tend to buy books that I found so great that I want to loan
| (Well, usually turns into gifting when it's books) to others.
| I've bought several copies of loangifted books now...
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Perhaps inspired from the real world author, Umberto Eco?
|
| "... The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of
| scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is
| the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty
| thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories:
| those who react with " _Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco,
| what a library you have! How many of these books have you
| read?_ " and the others--a very small minority--who get the
| point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage
| but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than
| unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you
| do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the
| currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there.
| You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow
| older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves
| will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the
| larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection
| of unread books an antilibrary. ..."
| bigbillheck wrote:
| If the store doesn't have a restroom I can see why:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariko_Aoki_phenomenon
| pacaro wrote:
| Well, this explains something. When my daughter was very young
| I used to take her to bookstores as an activity (the kids
| sections are often setup like play spaces) and without fail
| she'd fill her diaper.
|
| Juggling a kid with a full diaper while trying to buy some
| books and decide whether to risk the nearby public restrooms
| (also a shooting gallery) or try to wait to get home before
| changing her.
|
| Now I have an explanation
| autoexec wrote:
| Weird. I've never experienced that. Not in Japanese bookstores
| or American ones. Maybe folks who spend a lot of time in
| bookstores and libraries over years become immune to it?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| In my life I've spent an awful lot of time in bookstores and
| libraries and have developed no such immunity.
| jandrese wrote:
| I can't say I have either. Maybe it requires a specific gene
| activation? Like 5% of the population has the "bookstore
| pooper" mutation?
| daveslash wrote:
| Never heard of this. But I experience this almost every time I
| enter the door to my own home after being away for more than 6
| hours. I won't have any inkling of feeling prior to entering,
| but as soon as I do.... 15 seconds later I know where I'm now
| headed. Edit: My home is not a bookstore, but I do have a non-
| trivial personal library in my front room. Coincidence?
| haspoken wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ojDtk
| TheDesolate0 wrote:
| Bullshit like this is why I cancelled my NYT sub.
| pklausler wrote:
| Hiring a climate science denier for the opinion page was my
| last straw.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| this is the necessary corollary to upholding "book culture."
|
| if you believe books are a cultured activity for those with high
| intelligence, empathy, work ethic, desire to learn, or other
| high-brow drive, there will necessarily be those who only engage
| in reading aesthetically.
|
| instead, let it be what it is: a pastime. no higher or lower than
| reddit or tv or mountain biking.
|
| sorry, writers.
| robbintt wrote:
| On the surface, I agree. Books have taken us far, so lets not
| assume we've totally cracked why they work, though.
| blockwriter wrote:
| Except that mountain biking, reddit, and tv are never up to the
| task of presenting secular solutions to the quandaries of the
| soul. Mountain biking, unlike reddit or tv, might provide a
| sense of purpose or fulfillment, but all of them are inadequate
| to the task of formalizing the nature of the human condition.
| Not all writing participates in the formalization and the
| resolution of our foremost concerns, but the best does.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| And why exactly are they inadequate? Can you explain this
| beyond just saying it is?
| mkaic wrote:
| Most of the thought-provoking ideas, arguments, and
| "formalizations of the nature of the human condition" I've
| encountered in my life have come from movies, TV, or forum
| posts. Books are great, but let's not pretend they're somehow
| objectively superior to other media. It's all a matter of
| preference -- some people find books and reading to be the
| best source of wisdom _for them_ , and others (like me) find
| other media to be much better. It varies from person to
| person because art is definitionally subjective.
| blockwriter wrote:
| Movies, TV, and forum posts are simply not old enough to
| enjoy the same legacy of robustly elucidated gnosis as do
| books. Books are objectively superior in that respect,
| although they are perhaps not absolutely superior, as other
| media could develop a similar capacity to articulate
| notions specific to the soul of man. I agree with you about
| wisdom, as wisdom is as wisdom does, and wisdom is
| different life to life, but knowing is an altogether
| distinct matter. It is naive to pretend there are no
| differences, not least because the mediums select for
| different persons.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I cannot even quote those blasphemies.
|
| Sure, if you believe you are born to yell at cars or whatever,
| the day you will do something different will be for the
| enjoyment of a duly exceptional vacation. But if you do not see
| the value of something, all chances are the issue is with your
| "eyes".
|
| Incidentally: among the well recognized functions of books,
| they are there to have selected, better company that those in
| mentioned "social networks gone bad" - even taking special
| cases into account. (Of course, you have to be able to perceive
| what "better" is.)
| xsmasher wrote:
| Can you rewrite or break down your last sentence? I can not
| understand it.
| bityard wrote:
| It's not worth the bother. This is an exceptionally good
| example of intentionally obtuse writing, otherwise better
| known as good old fashioned BS!
| alexb_ wrote:
| Translation into actual English:
|
| >I think you are very wrong.
|
| >Sure, if you think you were born to have fun, doing
| something such as reading books will be "fun" too, since it's
| different from your normal life. But you aren't actually
| seeing the _real_ value in reading.
|
| >One of the main reasons books exist is so my company can be
| more "high-class", since those who don't read often are
| usually not as fun to hang out with.
|
| FTR I think this is an insane way of thinking, but I thought
| I would try and translate it to the best of my ability to
| words people can actually understand
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I grew up in a family of bibliophiles. When my grandfather
| died, I helped move part of his collection of thirty nine
| thousand books from the three apartments where he kept them.
| Thankfully he had files on all of them so it was not a big
| process to select which to keep, which to give and which to
| auction. One of his two deathbed regrets on was not acquiring
| a certain first edition when he had a chance, I believe these
| days.
|
| He was, as I am and my father is, a very well-read man. It
| hasn't made us better people but it's sure made it easy to
| spot silly pseudointellectual BS.
|
| Books are just dead trees wrapped in dead cows. I keep maybe
| 20 in my house. No better or worse than trying to signal with
| a Rolex or an instagram following. No better to learn from
| than YouTube or HN or any number of street corner
| conversations. Get your head out of your ass.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| you can still rank ways to spend your time. try it. some pass
| times are more fulfilling than others. reddit and tv, i
| imagine, are at the bottom of the list for most people.
|
| meanwhile, i know for myself that i almost never regret time
| spent reading. can't say the same for the spent on hn/netflix.
|
| so i don't think it does much good to equate ways to spend time
| except as a coping mechanism for time poorly spent.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _fulfilling_
|
| Let us not forget duty.
| prpl wrote:
| Black books, anyone?
| dvtrn wrote:
| Heh I absolutely adore that show, and now that you've mentioned
| it, and after reading this article, I'm off for a rewatch :)
| jeffcox wrote:
| All this time I thought it was a comedy, turns out it's a
| documentary.
| dannyphantom wrote:
| In my hometown, there is a long-standing bookstore that an
| elderly woman owns; she's been old since I was a child and she is
| old now. She rejoices when people come into her shop and her
| first instinct is to approach you and ask if you'd like a (free)
| coffee or tea, not of great quality, but it's a precursor to her
| second habit: she has a conversation with her guests and through
| that time she is carefully studying you. After a few minutes she
| will give you a smile and say "I've got the perfect book for
| you", she'll retreat into her shop and come back to you with a
| book in hand and only ask for a dollar or two in return.
|
| She was the town's "book lady" or "just the bookstore everyone
| goes to" so it's obviously been a disappointment when that wasn't
| the case everywhere as I've moved on and visited other stores;
| but it's impressions like that, as a child and growing up with
| that you are left with an idea on how booksellers _are supposed
| to be like_ because it 's what you grew up with as the normal
| thing; but alas the world is large and I'm sure this author has
| his reasons.
|
| Edit: wanted to add an example of how fantastic this woman was at
| figuring people out; I remember going in around maybe ~8-10 years
| old and she picked 'Edward's Eyes' [1] for me; it had a
| _profound_ impact on me as a child as it was so similar to my own
| life, even sharing the same first name as the narrator of the
| book.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/121419.Edward_s_Eyes
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Fascinating. Was she independently wealthy? Selling drugs on
| the side?
|
| I've always been curious about the financial aspects of
| businesses like this. I find they can often shed some
| interesting lights on ways to streamline operations/financials.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Probably owns the land, building etc. So long as property
| taxes are low it wouldn't cost her much to stay there.
|
| My dad has been doing this with coins for a couple decades.
| Going over peoples collections with them explaining the
| history origins what they're worth etc.
|
| I did the math once and he makes about two dollars per hour.
| But he loves it.
|
| Pro tip from his own words coins are a terrible investment.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Stamps too. I buy 30-40 year old ones to use as postage and
| pay ~40% less than they paid back then.
|
| Maybe they had some winners that made those losers
| profitable, but I have my doubts.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _always been curious about the financial aspects of
| businesses like this_
|
| I'm increasingly finding one of my favoured modes of leisure
| to be a book and a wine bar. Were I to open a wine bar in
| retirement, decades from now, I'd be fine running it at cost,
| counting the company and conversation as compensation enough.
| Swap that to a subsistence model in a low-cost locale, and
| the business still holds.
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| Off topic but do you just love wine and pleasant social
| spaces, or is there something about the whole wine bar
| experience in particular that makes it special, especially
| compared to other kinds of bars and cafes?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _do you just love wine and pleasant social spaces_
|
| Yes. Aperitif at a cafe in Italy scratches the same itch.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I know a woman who runs a used bookstore as part of her
| alcohol recovery therapy. I don't know the details, but I
| presume that it's to keep her mind occupied so she doesn't
| sit around and drink.
|
| It's super low-end, but she's really nice. I don't go to
| her town very often, but I always stop by and give her $50
| for 40 used paperbacks. We talk about them at the checkout,
| and she knows every one.
|
| I know it's heresy to say on HN, but it's been my
| observation that there are a lot of people who run
| businesses not to get rich, but to enrich themselves.
| ei8ths wrote:
| that sounds like a great bookstore to go into. I love used
| bookstores, sadly they have been going away.
| Lio wrote:
| Where ever you grew up sounds like a wonderful place. In my
| mind I'm constructing a sort of Twin Peaks[1] type town where I
| can take my newly acquired book to the good quality dinner.
|
| I have a similar sort of relationship with bike shops. You can
| tell a good one straight away and it's nothing like a chain
| store.
|
| My local one is in an ancient 4 story building with lots of
| back stairs and rooms. In the very top floor the owner keeps
| his own private collection, which if he's in the mood and you
| ask nicely he'll show you.
|
| When you're a kid independent shops like that, book shops,
| computer shops, bike shops, are magic (and they're still pretty
| good as an adult).
|
| 1. Without the murders and other worldly shenanigans obviously.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I learned a ton about bikes in a store like that. Also how to
| quickly patch tires (this was my first 'real' job) and to
| spoke wheels. Great time and lots of respect for the old man
| and his son that kept that place alive for over 70 years.
| Unfortunately it's gone now.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I feel this way about baseball card shops! I loved going to
| those as a kid
| robbintt wrote:
| There was something like this in Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio,
| in the aughts.
| elashri wrote:
| sad that it is no longer. I would have been there by now.
| gumby wrote:
| > She was the town's "book lady" or "just the bookstore
| everyone goes to" so it's obviously been a disappointment when
| that wasn't the case everywhere as I've moved on and visited
| other stores
|
| Palo Alto used to have seven (!) bookshops downtown; now there
| is but one but that survivor is indeed run by a pair of "book
| ladies" as you describe (except for the tea or coffee).
|
| I had a vacation house in a small town of about 2500 people
| that had a similar bookshop with a bunch of the usual staples
| and a somewhat esoteric mix of others. In a very deeply "red"
| area the owner also carried a lot of books that would
| definitely not appeal to that crowd, and they sold well. She
| eventually sold the business and it became a boring bookshop.
|
| One thing that matters to me is opinion. One day I decided I
| had to see what the fuss about Ayn Rand was all about. So I
| went into another favorite palo alto bookshop (now gone) and
| asked the owner where they were as I couldn't find them on the
| shelf. He got a funny look on his face and said, "Oh, we always
| keep a few around for _thoooose_ people as he led me to the
| spot.
| inamberclad wrote:
| I have great memories in the downtown Border's Books, reading
| through the stacks in the ornate former theater. Sadly, it's
| now a Blue Bottle cafe (not bad) and a coworking space
| (horrible) with corporate offices upstairs (sigh).
| joedavison wrote:
| The closing of that Borders was a tragic loss and the end
| of an era in Palo Alto.
| gumby wrote:
| The _opening_ of that Borders was a tragic loss of an art
| house theatre (the New Varsity) and the arrival of a
| corporate behemoth that drove most of the rest of the
| bookshops (one next door!) out of business.
|
| The permit for that building required that it be possible
| to turn it back into a live/film theatre. A friend of
| mine and I looked into turning it into a nightclub but in
| the end it was too much of a hassle (and Palo Alto is no
| longer the kind of place that has nightclubs and porno
| theatres (not the New Varsity!) downtown).
| NomadicDev wrote:
| Oh my god, you grew up in a fairytale :O
|
| I love stories of little quirky & fable-like people who are
| known as "that X person", and they seem to be a master at
| whatever X is. Creates a real charming atmosphere wherever
| these people exist.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| I imagine some of us are those kind of X persons in other
| peoples lives, where X [?]{Computer, Science, Internet}.
| GnarfGnarf wrote:
| Most of the used booksellers I've known are mavericks and
| misanthropes who love their books, resent parting with them, and
| run a bookstore because it's a job where they don't have to
| report to, or work with others.
|
| Unfortunately, used book stores are a vanishing breed.
| fauria wrote:
| At El Celler de Can Roca (3 Michelin Star restaurant in the
| northeastern coast of Spain) you can not only smell old books but
| also "eat" them: https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/roca-
| brothers-are-q...
|
| The Roca brothers managed to create a device (Rotaval) used to
| distill essences from different objects, after rubbing them with
| fat and dissolving it in alcohol.
|
| Low quality video from the device (couldn't find any better):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blB7VYQCxZw
| arthurcolle wrote:
| There seem to be no book stores in Miami like at all anymore, it
| is pretty sad. Apparently Books & Books was a thing before but no
| longer exists other than the sun umbrellas outside where they
| used to be.
| xpe wrote:
| A joyously insulting read. The author of the memoir (Kociejowski)
| is the kind of person you love to skewer others, as long as you
| are spared from his charming wrath.
| [deleted]
| ycombinete wrote:
| Some of this reminded me of Orwell's _Keep the Aspidistra
| Flying_
| drewcoo wrote:
| I used to manage a used book store. Maybe he seems insulting to
| you but he seems entirely correct to me.
| sushid wrote:
| Is that really true? I do love the smell of old books but I
| never would proclaim that out loud to a bookstore owner. I do
| actually purchase used books though when I visit stores. In
| fact went to a Bookoff and bought a book last week.
| skyyler wrote:
| Insults have the capacity for correctness.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to the owner's plight, as I imagine it's
| frustrating when you've got a bunch of customers who frequently
| stop into your establishment to profess how much they love your
| product, while failing to ever actually purchase your product.
|
| This is something particularly common with books/reading, where
| it becomes more of a performative act, to demonstrate _to
| everyone else_ how intellectual /educated you are.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Recently I've realized that if I want the local businesses I
| love to continue to exist, I need to be willing to give them
| some of my money. I've definitely developed a better
| relationship with a few local business owners by _purchasing_
| there regularly.
|
| A lot of stuff may be listed cheaper online, but it's
| important to remember that customer service, atmosphere, and
| convenience* also factor into the price. I'd rather pay a
| small premium to enjoy a pleasant shop than pay for shipping
| from somewhere online.
|
| *Convenience cuts both ways. I don't have Prime or anything
| like that so a local shop is the only way to get something
| same-day, but I recognize that I do have to leave the house
| and probably drive somewhere.
| TylerE wrote:
| Plus once you've established that relationship, you can
| often get effectively competitive prices anyway, either in
| the form of the occasional freebie, or, especially in items
| with significant margin, like musical instruments,
| substantial discounts off sticker.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> He sold a copy of "Finnegans Wake" to Johnny Depp_
|
| This is one of the most fascinating books that I know of. I'm
| pretty well convinced that the world population of people who
| have read more than the very beginning and very end probably
| numbers roughly the count of my fingers and toes combined.
| Although I think many people
|
| I also think the the only person who ever really understood the
| book was James Joyce himself. Fluency in multiple languages down
| to idiomatic expressions and deep etymology seem like strict
| requirements if you have never occupied the meatspace between
| Joyce's ears.
|
| Any small portion seems somewhat comprehensible in its highly
| local environment, and a bit funny or witty in how it's written.
| But then it breaks down when attempting to connect that piece to
| the wider whole. And it all makes me feel like I'm reading
| extremely familiar words whose meaning I can't quite remember.
|
| In refreshing my memory about it before commenting here it made
| me laugh to see that even the best Wikipedia can say about what
| goes on in the book is that readers have mostly reach a consensus
| (but only a consensus!) about normally trivial matter of fact
| such as the cast of characters, a little less so the plot, but
| that many other important details amount to poorly mapped
| terrain.
|
| And because I was born with the usual amount of fingers andntoes,
| if I met a random person in passing, and they claimed to have
| read the book completely, I would look at them with as much
| belief as if they had said "I'm a very powerful leader of one of
| the G20 nations". Actually I might believe the G20 claim a bit
| more because I would consider it less likely for someone to make
| a claim like that when it could so easily be proven false if it
| was not true.
|
| If I had not encountered the book long ago then I might believe
| it to be the output of an extremely oddly trained gpt-3 model. I
| don't mean that to be an insult to the book, it's just the best
| comparison I can think of to characterize it's contents in modern
| terms.
|
| This is how fascinating Finnegan's Wake is as a literary work.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Reading Joyce is like listening to Prisencolinensinainciusol.
| It _seems_ like you should be understanding and comprehending
| it. All the bits are there. You know what the words /syllables
| respectively are, but you just can't quite seem to grok any
| meaning out of it.
| number6 wrote:
| I have this book laying around here. Read the first page and
| did not understand anything.
|
| Quarks are named after a line in this book so I thought: well
| give it a try.
|
| Do you have any idea how to tackle this?
| jaccarmac wrote:
| I'm making my way through and haven't had any problems
| besides slowness (which I chose at the beginning not to treat
| as a problem). I did a little research before starting (for
| one I listened to the first season of The Cosmic Library
| podcast) and do a bit more when something strikes my interest
| (the last little dive was based on the Mookse and Gripes
| story:
| https://originalpositions.home.blog/2013/12/27/finnegans-
| wak...). I read it out loud to my wife some nights as she
| goes to sleep. It's fun and every so often intelligible; So
| far it seems worth it to simply press on and not try to
| comprehend much. I'm a rather dissatisfied monoglot and Joyce
| has just about managed to put me in love with English.
|
| Also: I had a childhood habit of reading the last page of a
| novel before starting the book. The Wake is quite possibly
| the best book ever written to try that on.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I'm personally trying to read Ulysses, after picking up a
| book which said that Ulysses was not meant to be super-
| challenging to read, in fact it was meant for ordinary Irish.
| What I'm doing is trying to read it, and if I don't
| understand something, just carrying on.
|
| Finnegan's Wake is another kettle of fish though! I wouldn't
| know where to start with that.
| pklausler wrote:
| I recommend "Mythic Worlds, Modern Words" by Joseph W.
| Campbell as a good introduction to the Wake, especially its
| decryption of the first few paragraphs, which are especially
| dense -- and not just because they're at the beginning and
| the reader isn't comfortable yet with the style.
|
| I've read it all the way through three times. (I'm old.) It's
| worth the time, if you're willing to spend it.
| arein3 wrote:
| Gatekeeping "true book enjoyers". Nice bait.
| jandrese wrote:
| Seems more like a cranky bookstore owner who was grouchy at
| every person who came in but didn't buy a book. You can imagine
| him yelling "this is not a lending library!" several times each
| day.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Microorganisms, oxidation and acidity are responsible for that
| smell. It's the smell of various forms of decay!
| https://phys.org/news/2009-12-clues.html
| jackling wrote:
| Wonder if there's any evolutionary reason people really like
| the smell. I would think it would be the opposite.
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