Aging Gracefully
The Plot Thickens for Bookstores
I’d like this to be a bookstore tribute, but unfortunately (with apologies to Shakespeare), I’ve come to bury bookstores not to praise them.
I’ve tried to continue patronizing bookstores. I really have. I love going to them. They have such a calm, peaceful vibe, with the feeling of possibility hanging in the air, the feeling of a great story being at your fingertips. A new journey to embark on. They provide such a great service to society and often have been pillars and gathering spots in local communities.
But if you want to buy a book these days, bookstores are often not the right place to go.
They just can’t compete anymore. Not enough shelf space, not enough storeroom space. Not enough space in the world to compete with Amazon.
Every city has a grand bookstore, like The Strand or City Lights or Powell’s in Portland, and they are sticking around, even flourishing, but that’s not enough to sustain an industry or a shopping habit for people who want books in their local town.
The problem is selection. Selection! (Imagine this sounding like “Tradition, Tradition! ” from the song Fiddler on the Roof.) When I want a new book, based on a recommendation from a friend, a family member, a podcast or Instagram/TikTok, I can’t just mosey on over to my local bookstore and find it.
But I can go to Amazon. And there the book will be displayed, for far less cost than my local bookstore. And in most cases I can have it the next day. I realize that this is some sort of Faustian Bargain, buying from the evil giant who’s crushing the soul of the small bookstores (and a lot of other kind of stores), but after fending it off for years, I’ve officially caved.
I can’t sacrifice my convenient reading experience any longer. I can’t sacrifice spending more of my suddenly precious dollars when EVERYTHING costs more now. At least I’m buying a book from Amazon and not a commodity like toilet paper. Oh yeah, I buy toilet paper from Amazon too.
Local bookstores have been through a lot. First it was the big box Barnes & Nobles and Borders of the world running local bookstores out of town with glee. Remember the movie “You’ve Got Mail, ” in which Tom Hanks is the CEO of a big bookstore chain that is pushing Meg Ryan’s cute, local bookstore to the brink? How quaint.
Then, Amazon destroyed those big chains with its ruthless efficiency, terrific customer service and infinite inventory. (Though according to recent news reports, Barnes & Noble is making a comeback with a strategy to mimic local bookstores “cultivated discovery” experience but with more variety and selection.) We’ll see.
You might say to me: “Well you can still go to bookstores to browse. That’s a rewarding experience, right?” It is, but that doesn’t help them survive and actually makes it worse for them. And I do it occasionally, but it’s not my primary spot for sure.
Another problem for bookstores is that people are reading less. Specifically reading fewer books. (Don’t worry, they still read social media.)
According to a 2025 YouGov study, approximately 40% of U.S. adults did not read a book in the past year, reflecting a long-term decline in leisure reading. Reading for pleasure has dropped over 40% in two decades!
Now that’s just sad.
All of this points to the eventual extinction of most bookstores. It’s inevitable, like eating pasta and getting sauce on your shirt. And we can’t even blame AI (for either)!
We live in a supply & demand-driven capitalist society. Amazon has out-supplied the bookstores. And although books could be profitable, Amazon doesn’t need its book division to drive sales - books are a tiny part of its machine. From Amazon Cloud Services to Prime to all of the products on its site, books are simply a nice to have and maybe reminder of Amazon’s roots as the first online bookstore. (“Who would buy a book from the Internet,” said everyone back then.)
I don’t know what to do. Maybe we need to just accept that this is progress. You can still curl up with a great book and experience the wonder that is reading, a mesmerizing story that takes you away. And learn something new.
But you will likely have purchased that book on Amazon. And it arrived with your Croc’s. Cue the crocodile tears.
Bonus: My favorite three books of the last year: