After 15 wonderful years, our local remainder bookstore, The Book Outlet, is closing its doors. You won’t be surprised to learn I bought over 1000 books from The Book Outlet over those years. The books were organized by sections–Science Fiction, Mysteries, Large Print, Biographies, etc–so it was easy to find what you were looking for. New stock arrived weekly. The BARGAIN section (aka, Books for a Buck) was a favorite of mine. Over the years, the stock morphed several times. The owner tried to attract a younger audience by stocking comic books and graphic novels. Then there was the great doll experiment when dolls competed with books for shelf space. But in the end, The Book Outlet succumbed to changing times and the ever-increasing costs of its lease. Today is the last day The Book Outlet will be open. I intend to drive over and buy one last book. Western New York is down to just a handful of used bookstores now. It’s a sad day.
Used book stores are hanging on by their fingernails around here. All the really good ones are gone, in fact. The Goodwill type outfits want at least $1.99 for any beat up old beach read and don’t like slim books–like Gold Medals–clogging up their shelves.
Bob, I find most of used books at the Salvation Army and Goodwill Thrift Stores. Nothing is organized. But that’s what we’ve been reduced to today. Like Bill Crider, I miss the Old Days.
The closing of a book store is always a melancholy event… there ought to be Rock & Roll songs about it.
Dan, there are very few used bookstores left in Western New York. Twenty years ago, there were over a dozen local used bookstores I used to frequent on a regular basis.
We have one used book store that has barely hung on–I think it’s open three days a week now. Our local Goodwill will sometimes surprise me (I recent found Claire Tomalin’s bio of Thomas Hardy there for a buck) and then there are the regularly-scheduled Friends of the Library sales, but finding books (used or otherwise) outside of the internet is getting harder and harder. Yes, I can look for specific books on Amazon or other online sources, but the joy and serendipity of finding books by browsing…that’s all but gone.
/As Bill would say, I miss the old days.
Deb, I miss the joy and serendipity of browsing, too. The thrill of finding a great book for a dollar is one of the best feelings in the world! And that thrill is happening less and less.
Sad indeed, but it’s the overall situation. Video on tv, pc, tablets, and phones. The young kids all tell me, over and over, that they don’t read much, cuz why read when you can watch the movie? With the bookstores mostly gone, I still enjoy browsing and buying in Barnes & Noble, but I wonder how long they will hang on. One can just browse heavily from his iPad and order an e-book, or have the books shipped in 2 days. When all the “real” bookstores die, I think little independents, here and there, will survive or pop up for the hangers-on and the novelty of it, like antique stores. I dunno, who knows? Maybe the book fairs and LesserCons will survive just for the fun of it too, but how far into the future, one only knows. Or maybe libraries will survive strong to become that place one goes to see and read bound books. Sigh…
Roy, I try to support the handful of used and new bookstores still open for business. But the trend is against them. My student read books on their phones and tablets. Most of them don’t own a printed book.
NO!!! George took me to The Book Outlet on one of our visits to Western NY/Southern Ontario and it was a great place. I must admit that I get most of my books these days on the internet, but that’s as much due to the lack of the old outlets here as any other reason. I spent every summer from 1978 to 2003 (?) going through England and Scotland on book hunts, and by the end it was getting harder to find the Gold Old Stuff we all are looking for. Used books? Sure, if they were published in the last decade.
I’m old enough that I remember the last vestiges of the old Fourth Avenue book row, where I used to spend many lunch hours (when I wasn’t in the Strand) while working in the Village in the early 1970s, and found some great stuff. Those days are gone and aren’t coming back.
I really miss the old days.
PS – for the first time today, I don’t have to type in my name and email! At last. Hallelujah!
Jeff, hope the name and email problem has been fixed. Yes, I remember taking you and Jackie to THE BOOK OUTLET. I took Maggie and Beth there, too. Plenty of books at great prices…now gone.
Me too! Yay technology!
As B. B. King says, “The thrill is gone.” And as you pointed out, I miss the old days.
Bill, I’m right there with you on the Old Days. Remember record stores? Gone, too.
we have several record stores in SD no new record stores, just used. B&N is selling vinyl now
Maggie, we’re down to three record stores. Barnes & Noble and Best Buy sell current CDs, but that’s about it.
There are very few used book stores in my area, George, and they seem to thrive on specializing in “beach reads” and maintain an if-it’s-more-than-a-couple-of-years-old-it-must-be-worthless philosophy. Ptah!
I’m a curmudgeon.
And, ditto Jeff’s PS!
Jerry, it’s easy to go to the Dark Side when bookstores close. We’re all going to morph into curmudgeons if this continues.
Speaking of bad news, I forgot to pass on this one. Remember the “free” bookstore we went to in Baltimore during the Bouchercon there? (For those who haven’t been there, all the books are donated and EVERYTHING is free.) When we saw Jeff & Ann Smith on our way back from Florida in March, Jeff said the store had burned down! The guy was hoping to reopen somewhere but who knows if it will happen.
Jeff, another tragedy!
It’s probably no consolation to you all if I tell you that we have the same problem over here in Europe, used book stores are getting rarer and rarer – even in the big cities like London, Munich or Budapest and of course in the smaller university cities too.
And from experience I know that in NYC where I used to go regularly over the last 30 years it’s even worse – couldn’t find any store that had used SF books at all on our last visit.
Running costs just are too high it seems and the number of people who want “physical” books also seems to be lower every year.
Wolf, we’re experience the same diminishment of bookstores of all types as you are. E-books are favored by my students…and they determine the future.
This is indeed depressing.
I believe Maggie and I went there with you after the last Toronto Bouchercon.
Used books around here are now found at Half Price Books and whatever can be scrounged from the Goodwill/St. Vincent stores.
Beth, I remember the used bookstore in the Milwaukee Airport fondly. Now, it’s just a bittersweet memory.
Sorry to hear that. I remember well our booking trip. I was showing you how I found collectibles. I wasn’t expecting it, but found a copy of earl emerson’s fill the world with phantoms in horror. It was a mystery, stated mystery on the book, but the cover was a typical dark horror cover.
I remember one of the best booking trips I ever took. My friend scott and I were picking up another friend, Kai, at his home. He lives in a lake area with lots of fields, and I met and patted a very nice golden retriever. I found so many good books, but scott and kai didn’t have the same luck at first. We started out in Yuma AZ, then went to Tucson. The guys didn’t find much, so scott suggested we go to Las Cruces NM, and then it wasn’t too far to El Paso, so we went there. We all did spectacular. I attributed it to petting the golden. We still laugh about our AZ. booking trip that ended up in Texas.
Maggie, I remember when you found that Emerson book. You told us you had been search for it for years! It must have been a thrill to finally find it!
actually, that was the 3rd one I found. The first was for leila dobsha, his biggest fan, the 2nd was for me, and that was for Nancy.
An update on a book found on the az booking trip that ended up in El Paso. In Tucson, I found a very rare pbo Cooking out of this world. It was a cookbook with recipes by SF authors. It was pulled pretty quickly from the shelves. One recipe was reportedly fatal. A small press reprinted it in hb, and the first went for nice money. It’s now been reprinted, I assume in PB, and copies go for $5.
To quote a line, “Another one bites the dust”. I’m lucky to have Powell’s here, though I don’t go often these days. Oh, and I still have to type in my info. Maybe next time it will remember me.
Rick, we’re still working on that data entry problem. Don’t give up!
George, I also have that data entry problem, but very easy to solve:
As soon as I enter the first letter into the field(s) the system shows me “my” value, which I just have to confirm. That’s similar to many other systems, wordpress among them.
Back to books:
A few years I gave up trying to collect “everything” by an author – there’s the law of diminishing returns, the search for the last missing book(s) gets time consuming – and expensive …
So I’m happy with what I’ve got …
Of course, if I find something by accident, I take it – if it’s not too expensive!
PS:
Now the data entry fields are pre-filled, probably because I already posted something today???
Wolf, we’re hoping the data entry problem gets solved by the WORDPRESS upgrade.
That trick Wolf keeps saying he uses, entering the first letter, doesn’t work for me.
It remembered me today
I guess I’ve been to the Book Outlet with you at least 3 times. Fun place to browse, though I don’t think I bought much. It never looked anything like a prime retail location – more like a repurposed industrial building; I suspect that the property owners have more ambitious plans for the space than just finding another tenant. But, hey, less clutter for that nice new dining room table (yeah, sure…).
Art, the new tenants in THE BOOK OUTLET space is PLATTER’S CHOCOLATE. Yum!
The Book Outlet looks like it would have been my type of place. Two stores that I loved, Main Books in Sarasota, FL. that had four floors, and The Largest Bookstore in the World in Toronto closed several years ago. Haslam’s in St. Pete FL is still hanging on. Here in Winnipeg we still have several used bookstores although I heard last week that one of the oldest is up for sale. Good luck. I want to get to Powell’s and The Strand, but that probably won’t happen. In Florida Goodwill has opened a couple of stores that deal only in books and in England the charity organizations have shops dedicated to books. It has to be impossible for traditional booksellers with shops to compete in those communities.
Kent, I remember Haslam’s in St. Pete from many years ago – was a bit difficult to find (in the pre-GPS age) coming from St Pete Beach …
I really like the Gulf Coast!
And The Strand on Broadway in Manhattan still exists?
Was there too many years ago, but for SF I always went to Forbidden Planet which used to be really good in the old location. I remember once buying used books for many Deutschmarks … I had them sent to me via post and when they arrived in Germany after a long time (being sent by ship …) having to explain to the customs people that I was not a book dealer, but a collector.
In the end they had to believe it – I showed them my list of wanted books and they saw that there were all different titles in those three large cardboard boxes – but they looked a bit strange at all those crazy covers on those Signet, ACE and DAW books! 🙂
Yes Wolf, the Strand still exists on Broadway and 12th Street. They even opened a couple of satellite branches, though I couldn’t tell you if they still exist.
We’ve been to Powell’s, on our one and only visit to Portland, and it was great. And I could name many, many stores in England worth a trip for the books, though after 10 years away I can’t say which still exist. I would definitely schedule a day at Hay on Wye (just across the border into Wales).
Kent, the only “great” remainder bookstore left is the gigantic BOOK DEPOT in St. Catherines, Canada.
I was going to mention that. It is HUGE.
we have goodwill bookstores in San Diego. Sadly, they pretty much deal in beach books and “pretty” books. And no bargains.
I found that to really score with used books, there has to be an outlet for new books. Yuma AZ. was the exception to that with Bandana Books, where I found the first copy of “fill the world with phantoms”.
Las Cruces NM was also a treasure trove of used books. They had a killer library bookstore
What a shame – ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to pretty much live in a bookstore and overtime one closes, little part of me dies – so sorry to hear it. Love the photo of all those lovely volumes 🙂 Buy a Golden Age mystery for me George – I’m good for it!
Sergio, we’re down to just a few used bookstores now. Little did I know I was living in the Golden Age of Used Bookstores 20 years ago!