Wednesday, May 24, 2006

A Vanishing Species

(Warning: Nostaligia will be wallowed in during the course of this post.)

I had to go to Dallas today, something I do only on rare occasions, and I thought that on the way back I'd do a little booking and stop at a couple of used bookstores between here and there. I used to visit one of these stores on a fairly regular basis, and they always had a good stock of old paperbacks. But I don't go that way very often anymore and the traffic getting there is usually bad, so I hadn't been in a couple of years. The other store I'd only been to once.

You can probably guess where this is headed. Both stores were gone. In one case, the shopping center space was vacant. In the other case, the store was not only gone, so was the building and all the other buildings on the block as well. I guess somebody's going to build some other business there, or the state's putting a road through, or something.

But this got me to thinking about all the used bookstores in this area that have vanished over the years, stores where I spent lots of enjoyable hours and bought lots of good books. The Book Rack. Book-a-teria. Echo Paperbacks. Lone Star Paperbacks. The Book Swap. Thompson's Bookstore (both locations in downtown Fort Worth -- the one on Throckmorton was the first used bookstore I ever went to). The junk store on the west side of Fort Worth a couple of blocks from the bomber plant. The TV repair shop on the north side that also sold paperbacks (my wife will remember it as the place where the floors moved under you when you walked). Harbinger Books. MegaBooks. Bricktop Books. Books Etc. The Pirate's Den in Austin. Collector's Bookstore in Corpus Christi. And all the places with names I've forgotten, places that had no name, places that I visited only once or twice before they disappeared. I remember a time about 25 years ago when Livia and I made a list of all the used bookstores in one area of town and spent an entire day going from store to store, coming home late in the afternoon with sacks and sacks full of books. And it pains me to think that those days are gone and will likely never come again.

I know, I know, we have the Internet now. I can go to ABE and search for a copy of Richard S. Prather's DEAD MAN'S WALK (the first Shell Scott novel I ever read), and a few mouse clicks tell me that more than 50 copies are available, starting at $1.50. I could buy one in a matter of seconds. But could it ever mean as much to me as the copy that I bought for a quarter at Thompson's in 1967 and read during one long, lazy summer day?

Somehow, I don't think so.

6 comments:

Graham Powell said...

I've only been a few places in recent years where you could walk from bookstore to bookstore: New Orleans (pre-Katrina; haven't been back yet), Galveston, and Boulder, Colorado.

Buddy Gott said...

I know what you mean, James. Finding the books online is nowhere near as much fun as going on a mission to find them or just stumbling upon them in used bookstores.

About ten years ago, I was on a mission to find as many of Richard Prather's and Ed McBain's book as I could find. I had beaten-up lists that I'd take with me from used bookstore to used bookstore and I'd scratch off the titles from the lists when I found the books. Still, even if I didn't find the books I was looking for, I'd still have fun searching for them.

I ended up getting all the remaining Prather books I needed to get from Ebay. Sure, I was happy to get the books, but it definitely wasn't as much fun getting them that way.

James Reasoner said...

For at least 25 years I've been carrying around lists of books that I'm looking for. There are two or three such lists in my wallet right now. I have to admit that as a writer, one of the things that gives me a kick is thinking that somebody somewhere probably has a list of my books they carry around with them, crossing off the titles as they find them.

Cap'n Bob said...

I'm not sure there are any used book stores left in Tacoma of the one-owner variety. We have Half Price and the thrift stores carry used books (and hardly a slim paperback to be found), but that's it. And the prices in most of these places are ridiculous.

Charles Gramlich said...

New Orleans post-Katrina doesn't have all those stores any more. A sad thing. I keep the same kinds of lists myself of things I want, and I agree with James, being able to pick them up on line is just not the same as stumbling upon one in an actual bookstore.

Carl V. Anderson said...

This is the kind of nostagia that is good nostalgia. I can remember the first book I ever bought in a used bookstore: a copy of Larry Niven's "A World Out of Time", a book which I still enjoy (just read it again the other day) and has fond memories for me...wish I still had that copy.

I hate to see used bookstores disappear, especially good ones as they are rare. There is a large used bookstore in Tulsa, Gardner's, that I used to frequent when I lived there and still visit everytime I get back.

I love the ease of the internet when I just "have" to have something, but it isn't even close to equalling the thrill of hunting through and old bookstore and finding the treasure of something you remember from your youth or have wanted for a long time.

Some friends and I did the same thing you and your wife did...on a trip to Chicago last year we mapped out all the used bookstores in a certain area of town and spent the day doing that...it was wonderful. One of those same friends is one who I do a used bookstore tour with every few months just to see what we can come up with!

Great post!