/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16956995]

Why do modern bookstores suck so much?

[Anonymous No.16957006]

>>16956995
Why does modernity suck so much in general?

[Anonymous No.16957013]

>>16957006
the jews, you know it's true anon

[Anonymous No.16957021]

In Burgerland, they are like gas stations, all offering the exact same products. Shop the used stores and let the rest die.

[Anonymous No.16957025]

>>16956995
They just have the latest book publishers are pushing like Obama's memoir, the White Fragility book, the new Harry Potter book etc.

[Anonymous No.16957040]

>>16956995
Amazon is just superior in every way unless you prefer walking into a store. Also like this anon said >>16957021 it's pretty much all B&N and mom and pop and none of them really distinguish themselves. Used stores make more sense.

[Anonymous No.16957045]

They push leftoid garbage. Simple as.

[Anonymous No.16957046]

i think you mean "new book" stores. because used book stores are great

[Anonymous No.16957047]

>>16957021
used bookstores near me suck too. it's all stephen king, dean koontz and james patterson shit with one small section of "classics" which contains some badly assembled editions of shakespeare's complete works and a copy of dracula or something

[Anonymous No.16957050]

>16957025
They only sell that because they know that's what most people will want to buy, especially in urban centers. I literally once went to a bookstore specializing in Russian lit, and they had Michelle Obama's book on the shelf. I actually think that most of their revenue comes from Library sales and selling popular books like this to casuals.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16957060]

>>16956995
>>16957006
Capitalism

[Anonymous No.16957072]

>>16956995
>tables filled with toys and manchild bullshit taking up 1/4 of the floorspace around the entrance
>several shelves prominently displaying intersectionalist activist/whiteness studies/genderist bullshit
>75% of the shelf space in the back dedicated to fantasy, manga and YA, a classic novel here and there
>sad little philosophy and history section tucked away in the back

I just described every bookstore in North America

[Anonymous No.16957079]

>>16957060
Yes, of course. People aren't being alienated by leftoid nonsense like trans kid drag shows. They're being alienated by capitalism.

Retard bitch. I'd love to kiss you sensually.

[Anonymous No.16957081]

>>16957060
Bookstores were fine under pre-21st century capitalism
You should remember old lady

[Anonymous No.16957088]

>>16957079
>trans kid drag shows
How is that leftist?

[Anonymous No.16957102]

>>16957060
>>16957013
Its both. Its the jews game-theorizing capitalism and turning bookstores into a glorified magazine stand; sacrificing store quality for slightly higher profit margin.

[Anonymous No.16957116]

>>16957088

Because that's the basis of their oppression, so to speak. You cannot build the oppression narrative without the materialist consequences of our capitalist world.

[Anonymous No.16957124]

>>16957046
Used bookstores are extra comfy if you live in a more historic area with an older population. Elderly people die, their kids sell all their books off for cheap. The ones near me have loads of 19th century books of all types and in particular a lot of old nautical texts as it was a port town. I also once opened a history book on an army regiment and a handwritten poem written by a WWII veteran in honour of his friend that was cut down by machine gun fire fell out.

Those cozy used bookstores where the books are stacked chaotically from floor to ceiling are peak comfy. New bookstores are almost entirely trash.

[Anonymous American No.16957126]

Many modern bookstores suck because modern book-culture sucks. Have you seen what kind of literature tops the New York Times charts?

[Anonymous No.16957137]

>>16957060
>>16957013
How stupid can you possibly be? >>16957102
is right, both capitalism and social degeneracy (what you call the jews) lies behind the wasteland of post-modernity. But sure, stay divided and focusing only only class or racial grievances and let them keep taking everything from you. The economic elites use capitalism and societal liberalism to destroy families, tradition, religion, and anything that could stand in the way of consolidating their wealth and power and reducing everyone else to atomized individuals.

[Anonymous No.16957154]

>>16957124
Did you keep the poem? You should have.

[Anonymous No.16957160]

>>16957079
yes fucking retard, having to work every day causes me stress, not some fucking imaginary drag show that I have never seen with my own eyes and which only exists on the internet. how hard is this to understand

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16957163]

>>16957081
Stuck behind a counter and waiting for someone to buy a book? Did you see that BBC show Black Books?

[Anonymous No.16957170]

>>16956995
Common bookstores have always sucked - don't delude yourself

[Anonymous No.16957172]

Do people actually buy these white fragility books etc?
I thought that they just bought like supermarket fiction

[Anonymous No.16957178]

>>16957124
>Those cozy used bookstores where the books are stacked chaotically from floor to ceiling are peak comfy.
that's what my local used book store is. cozy is the word, aided by the smell of old paper.

[Anonymous No.16957210]

>>16956995
Maybe where you live
>>16957124
>>16957178
These are some of my local bookstores.

[Anonymous No.16957216]

I like Barnes and Noble. There's plenty of space to move around and they keep everything organized well. I never saw any of this political crap in my local barnes and noble until /lit/ told me that Oprah Winfrey was a communist. I think you are all perhaps a bit mentally ill and should not be allowed to own books or visit stores, but use a public library instead.

[Anonymous No.16957218]

>>16956995
Because they cater to the market that's going to actually buy their books. Even if this board did actually read contemporary literature, would they pay for it? Probably not. This board openly encourages using e-readers and pirating literature; I'm not saying that's bad, I'm saying if I owned a bookshop, I wouldn't cater to that market.

The demographic that buys their books are normally older people or long-term readers, people that have already read the classics or middle-aged parents. In the yeard of our Lord 2020, do you think people are going to be buying Ulysses or As I Lay Dying decades after their publications?

Also, >>16957060 is right. Supply and demand dictate that bookstores sell the books people want to buy. Imagine complaining about modernity in essence and then complaining when it doesn't cater to you.

[Anonymous No.16957219]

>>16957047
One I used to frequent,, operated by an obviously committed reader, had about 20% of its shelves filled with non-retard material, about 5% of it canon literature. At the same time, the local metropolitan library suffered from a lack that was even worse considering the resources available to its administrators, who operated under the "this library's original charter was as a research one" excuse despite the passage of nearly a century of growth to it and the region it served since its inception. Every time I mentioned the state of their collection with staff there, I was met with that same standard reply, and began to see it as much more of a commercial racket that it pretended to be.

[Anonymous No.16957234]

>>16957218
the only people that buy newly written books on this board are those cretins from /sffg/

[Anonymous No.16957243]

>>16957234
Some of us buy history books too

[Anonymous No.16957249]

>>16957218
People still pirate books? Music I can understand, that's a shady fucking business, but books?

[Anonymous No.16957252]

>>16956995
List of cool bookstores in Paris for those interested (lifted from another thread):
>Bookstores in Paris
>tourist traps
Shakespeare and Co, La librairie Canadienne
>general second-hand books
Gibert, plenty of stores of that franchise in central Paris
>high quality, rare and/or obscure bookstores
23bis Rue des Écoles, 75005 Paris
1 Place Paul Painlevé, 75005 Paris
17 Rue Linné, 75005 Paris
Epsilon, rue de Vaugirard, just facing Carmes church (Institut Catholique) (name might have changed)
San Francisco bookshop (rue Monsieur le Prince)
The Nouvelle Librairie, rue de Médicis
Boulinier, boulevard Saint Michel
>used book markets
Marché du Livre Parc Georges Brassens
>unclear status
Berkeley Books or something, rue Casimir Delavigne
L'Ecume des Pages on the Boulevard Saint Germain. Not sure they're a tourist trap, but open late with a good selection is good enough for me.
>technical bookstores
Pretty much off topic but criminally underfrequented (bookstore for old math and science book written by big name scientists like Laplace):
Librairie of the editions Jacques Gabay, 151 bis, rue Saint-Jacques
Slightly more on-topic (bookstore of one of the main French publisher of philosophy books):
Librairie of the Vrin editions, 6, place de la Sorbonne

[Anonymous No.16957256]

>>16957137
We need national socialism. There is no alternative.

[Anonymous No.16957257]

>>16956995
Because in your heart, you wish there were a communal space filled with books and frequented by interesting people that didn't smell like the homeless. You hold a similar disappointment with libraries and coffeeshops. You seek a certain magical, intellectually saturating atmosphere that you believe an in-person book buying experience should provide, and yet you have no real reason to do anything but walk in, go straight to the genre and author-alphabetical section of the specific book you came in for, hand your credit card to the dyke behind the cash register, say "no" to the membership program, sigh at the price, and make the cold trudge back to your car with that silly bag that your book never seems to sit properly in. When you get home, you're alone, and you discover a set of dog-eared pages that your triple-check hadn't revealed. Do you even want to read, after that?
It's disappointing. Soul-hollowing. And most used book stores are no better, only offering cheaper wares at a lower quality if that is how you prefer to consume your content.


Is something better even possible? Did it once exist? Who knows? The only magic I've ever felt in such a setting was when I once sat in the dungeon depths of my college's library at Oxford at a rare midnight, thirsty like a whore for every bound text on the overflowing shelves.
Yet, even if we were to recreate it, even if I were to walk back down those creaking metal stairs and perform the motions, it would merely be its own form of consumption.
It feels as though it is only the real and sincere that you can escape from, and never back into. It feels as though we are all trapped in this.

[Anonymous No.16957266]

>>16957218
>The demographic that buys their books are normally older people or long-term readers, people that have already read the classics or middle-aged parents. In the yeard of our Lord 2020, do you think people are going to be buying Ulysses or As I Lay Dying decades after their publications?
B&N sells these books in store, and people are often reading Faulkner for school and will shop at a store they trust like B&N to find the book.

I have an easier time finding Joyce books at corporate bookstores than the crap that's stocked by Amazon. (but used copies are technically available #$ not that i want somebody's moldy bathroom copy of Finnegan's Wake)

[Anonymous No.16957269]

>>16957256
that was created by a jew you dumbfuck

[Anonymous No.16957276]

>>16957249
I'm using the term pretty loosely. Obviously, all of the literary classics are already in the public domain, so they're not "pirating" like with music or film. "Pirating" books though, to me, is just downloading a pdf/epub/mobi of certain publisher editions, normally the most modern. It's not that hard to find copies of modern books as well. Again, not necessarily illegal or bad, just what it is.

[Anonymous No.16957282]

>>16957256
So we can only buy the half a dozen books that aren't banned

[Anonymous No.16957294]

>>16957269
You will never be a real woman.
>>16957282
You will never be a real woman.
>>16957289
You will never be a real woman.

[Anonymous No.16957295]

>>16957282
>So we can only buy the half a dozen books that aren't banned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_banned_in_Nazi_Germany

i think you could live pretty well without these authors

[Anonymous No.16957300]

>>16957256
No. We need theocracy.

[Anonymous No.16957305]

>>16957300
That would also be fine, actually. As long as it's Catholic.

[Anonymous No.16957308]

>>16957295
>Hesse
>Huxley
I like hitler even less now

[Anonymous No.16957314]

>>16957305
Theological differences can be set aside in times of crisis. Unironically Catholics, Orthodox, (some) Protestants, and (some) Muslims need to band together to stop capitalism and degeneracy and then we can decide the rest.

[Anonymous No.16957316]

>>16957295
There are plenty of authors there I like and would rather not be arbitrarily punished for reading

[Anonymous No.16957323]

>>16957276
I'm not necessarily picking an argument here. I'm just surprised. The vast majority of Kindle books are surprisingly cheap. Maybe my surprise comes down to me being so far removed from any city or regional centre. Secondhand book-buying means trawling through Facebook and you'll mostly just find Twilight and 50 Shades that has quite a crust of dried fanny juice gumming up the pages.

[Anonymous No.16957327]

>>16957295
>albert einstein

[Anonymous No.16957333]

>>16957266
I don't deny that traditional bookstores sell the classics, I mean that bookstores won't commit as much marketing or real estate to them. They'll always make intermittent sales for some reason and will likely have more permeance than a lot of contemporary novels but they're also too irregular to *just* stock. Bookselling is an extremely marginal business for independent retailers, they need to lean into trends harder than other businesses for that reason.

[Anonymous No.16957338]

>>16956995
>Let's encourage middle schoolers to read more books
>But only teenage drama bullshit talking about racism, transgenderism, immigrants, etc.
>Just stuff Shakespeare and Homer somewhere in the fiction section all the way in the back by the bathrooms
>Unless its the $35 limited edition B&N binding
Why does no one enjoy appreciate or encourage kids to pursue a classic liberal education anymore?

[Anonymous No.16957344]

>>16957308
>>16957316
Well sure, there's a few good one there
but think of the ones he didn't ban :)

[Anonymous No.16957348]

>>16957338
Are you trying to imply teenagers are not encouraged to read Shakespeare?

[Anonymous No.16957368]

>>16957295
>Hofmann
>Benjamin
>Bloch
>Broch
>Einstein
>Gide
>Kafka
>Kraus
>London
>Malraux
>Musil
>Mann
>Meyrink
>Proust
>Schnitzler
>Steiner
>Wells
>Wilde
>Zweig
Pretty based rec list desu.

[Anonymous No.16957382]

>>16957344
Banning books is dumb, and now days impossible.

[Anonymous No.16957385]

>>16957348
Not by stores or booksellers. English teachers, sure. Though I don't really know that I'd call forcing a kid to finish Romeo and Juliet in a certain period of time and then write a paper on it and later forget about the book is really "encouraging".

[Anonymous No.16957474]

>>16956995
Maybe because something as lame and lukewarm as Jordan Peterson is too much for these liberal faggot shops. I d mind the commie literature but walking in and being greeted by tranny shit, latinx trash, and anti-racist nonsense is very off putting.

[Anonymous No.16957498]

>>16957243
i only read primary sources

[Anonymous No.16957576]

>>16957218
I bought Ulysses yesterday

[Anonymous No.16957645]

>>16957338
>Shakespeare
>good

[Anonymous No.16957674]

>>16957645
>contrarianism
>original

[Anonymous No.16957686]

>>16957257
liked it well written

[Anonymous No.16957689]

>>16957126
>Have you seen what kind of literature tops the New York Times charts?
Last year I did that was probably 2014 or 2015. I'm too afraid to look now

[Anonymous No.16957696]

>>16956995
what exactly is wrong with them? what would your *ideal* book store do differently than barnes and noble?

[Anonymous No.16957699]

>>16957674
Being contrarian is good when defending something most people dislike.

[Anonymous No.16957705]

for me, it's half-price books, the most comfy bookstore chain

[Anonymous No.16957706]

>>16957218
The people they're "marketing" to aren't even buying their books. Bookstores are crashing, we had a thread about this yesterday

[Anonymous No.16957711]

>>16957218
>The demographic that buys their books are normally older people or long-term readers, people that have already read the classics or middle-aged parents.
If you think that's the kind of person who is going to read the latest Trump-scandal book or feminist rambling manifesto you're wrong.
People who read bookstore best-sellers are the kind who have never read and will never read anything that wasn't on a good-book-list and wasn't recommended by some authority like New York Times

[Anonymous No.16957713]

>>16957689
I just looked for 2019. First fiction book is ready player 2, the four next are polars/fantasy series. In non-fiction the first is Obama's memoirs, second is McConaughey's diary, third is Dolly Parton's analysis of her own songs, fourth is Michelle Obama's memoir, fifth is interview of american soldiers by a fow news anchor (might actually be interesting that last one).

It's pretty funny in a way.

[Anonymous No.16957716]

>>16957705
I like hpb, but they've gotten more expensive. Their clearance rack is the best part of the store.

[Anonymous No.16957732]

>>16957163
black books wasn't a bbc show. it was broadcast by channel 4.

[Anonymous No.16957747]

>>16957706
>Bookstores are crashing
unsurprising, online is slaughtering retail across the board. at least shit like clothes stores have people who only want to buy stuff if they can try it on first, brick and mortar book stores really have no advantage beyond not having to wait two days for amazon to ship it to you.

[Anonymous No.16957753]

>>16956995
>Why do POSTMODERN bookstores suck?

[Anonymous No.16957788]

>>16957706
>>16957711
Bookstores are suffering from online retailers and the general primacy of visual mediums. They're "crashing" in the United States because of this, not because of the books they're selling. In other places, where Amazon isn't as easy, other online retailers are doing the same but it's not as dire. The notion it's because of the books themselves is an incorrect assessment. Going on to Amazon right now, the best-sellers are Barack Obama's memoir, Ready Player Two, and kids' books; these are books placed at the forefront of first-hand bookstores and marketed in their newsletters and websites.

That bookshops and the majority of readers are treated with such contempt won't change literature. Bookshops are trying to make the best of a bad situation, which is having to deal with the biggest retailer in its strongest area.

[Anonymous No.16957791]

>>16956995
Because nobody’s fucking reading anymore

[Anonymous No.16957881]

>>16957172

If you buy White Fragility and put it in your shelf (in with the other black books, but that's not racist, we all organize our books by color) then it is proof to your liberal friends that you aren't racist. And if a black guy comes over you can be like, hey, aren't white people so fragile? I read this and it's so insightful. Maybe you'd like to be my black friend and come to more cocktail parties? Did you hear what NPR said about this book I totally read? They said the book says examine your whiteness. At least I think they said that, the people on NPR sure lisp a lot for radio hosts. Not that I think they're gay or anything, that'd be straight fragility, but it's like they pick their voices to be ironically bad for radio. But they can fill a mean cocktail party conversation on a book you haven't read, amiright?

[Anonymous No.16957936]

i used to have a great bookstore nearby, it was a total hovel, there were deadly spores in the air, an overpowering strench of cat piss, towering stacks of mouldy books, most for sale for a buck or less, i discovered so many gems in there, but thanks to the covidhoax they had to conform to new regulations and had to tidy everything up, now there's aisles and shelves and well-order sections, a gay fucking sign at the door that says "no mask no entry" and each book costs 5 bucks or more, i'll never give them money again

[Anonymous No.16957984]

>>16957881
okay based? Fuck NPR.

[Anonymous No.16957986]

>>16956995
Driven by forced narratives; the Obama's books, re-releases, toys, or the latest book-to-TV show.

[Anonymous No.16957993]

>>16957696
I bought the Jurassic Park / The Lost World hardcover combo recently at Barnes and Noble. It has silver-lined pages, and a red ribbon bookmark. It was only $25. Barnes and Noble does pretty good stuff with book artwork.

Meanwhile, I could go to the shitty local shop and find a bedbug-ridden copy of Jurassic Park from 1994 for $15, and also, don't forget, BLACK LIVES MATTER. SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES. BLACK LIVES MATTER.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16958017]

>>16957732
Oh.

[Anonymous No.16958051]

>>16956995
Knowledge wants to be free; now that the Internet exists and ebooks can be shared, bookstores were on borrowed time anyway. Amazon and friends can ship things cheaper than small stores, and without the in-your-face politics that so many itt despise. Of course they were gonna win.

[Anonymous No.16958347]

>>16958051
>Knowledge wants to be free;
fuck this richard stallman shit. "knowledge" doesn't "want" anything.

[Anonymous No.16959346]

In a thrift store I can find classic literature at $5 for 4 books. In a modern bookstore you find toys for adults, the staff picks are anti-white or anti-male dross, and as you go to pay $30 for your book they try and sell you gum, celebrity magazines, and some props like a book-themed tote bag so that you can post online about how smart you are.

[Anonymous No.16959362]

>>16957881
>Implying black people have books
lmao

[Anonymous No.16959363]

>>16956995
What "non-modern" bookstores are you implying are better than pic related?

[Anonymous No.16959371]

>>16957006
What age was better than modernity and why?

[Anonymous No.16959388]

>>16957079
>trans kid drag shows
Those are capitalism as well anon. TV doesn't give a shit about educating you, they just want you to buy stuff. And people who want you to buy stuff proverbially have no morals: all they want is for you to get addicted to any given stuff they are selling you, and in order to do so, they just shoot in your face whatever polls on what's trending say about what you like. So you probably like trans, anons.
If you hate modernity, stop buying stuff.

[Anonymous No.16959730]

>>16957160
>yes fucking retard, having to work every day causes me stress

What's your point? If this were a communist utopia, you'd still be working. The anti-work position only exists in the fever dreams of leftoid blowhards.

[Anonymous No.16959740]

>>16957060
It’s industrialization, retard

[Anonymous No.16959748]

>>16956995
All the people whining about "muh left wing books" don't know what sells. You seriously think bookstores would keep White Fragility and all that trash if it didn't sell? Well it does, I know I work in one, so unless you guys start buying a bunch of right wing books they'll keep being sold.

[Anonymous No.16959749]

>>16956995
Because of the democratization of literature. They now have to cater to the lowest denominator.

[Anonymous No.16959794]

>>16959748
>All the people whining about "muh left wing books" don't know what sells. You seriously think bookstores would keep White Fragility and all that trash if it didn't sell?

We have weekly threads about a new article where bookstore owners are begging people to come in since they're about to go under.

[Anonymous No.16959810]

>>16957060
Tranny

[Anonymous No.16959812]

>>16959794
And? White Fragility is popular. Bookstores carry it. Tell wh*Te people to stop being self-hating and bookstores won't sell it anymore.

[Anonymous No.16959817]

>>16957047
My local used bookstore is fucking amazing. Such a good history selection. The philosophy is a bit lacking though.

[Anonymous No.16959819]

>>16959812
>And? White Fragility is popular. Bookstores carry it.

Not popular enough. Everybody bookstore that peddles this shit deserves its demise.

[Anonymous No.16959825]

>>16957172
Yes I work in one. It's almost entirely white people buying this kind of shit too.

[Anonymous No.16959830]

>>16957006
Normopathic society celebrating the narcissist lifestyle. Tankies will tell you it is capitalism but that is only a selective interpretation of its current form.

[Anonymous No.16959841]

>>16959830
>Tankies will tell you it is capitalism but that is only a selective interpretation of its current form.
Mostly because they envision a society where they do even LESS work and enjoy MORE pleasure, as though this is somehow not already part of the problem.

[Anonymous No.16959842]

>>16956995
Because they are intrinsicly tied to mass consumerism. That they sell books is a minor detail.

[Anonymous No.16959849]

>>16957006
Proliferation of humanism to the point of ubiquity.
>>16957060
That’s part of it but your alternative does not escape humanism’s grip and is therefore worthless

[Anonymous No.16959853]

>>16959841
Yeah their "ideal world" seems like a hellhole. What would keep people from just sitting around eating burgers all day?
>>16959842
I agree but stop with the glasses pepe avatarfagging, assuming that's you who keeps spamming it.

[Anonymous No.16959856]

>>16957006
Yes, why? If only someone who hates modernity was willing to ever give an articulate answer about that...

[Anonymous No.16959862]

>>16959853
I'll have you know this is the first time in a week I've posted glasses pepe. Have another and begone.

[Anonymous No.16959869]

>>16957021
>>16956995
I have found the best place to find interesting books is in dumpsters. Dumpsters behind used book stores and resale shops can lead to some great finds. The fact is, they are only going to display stuff that they think will sell to the average normie. If you're on /lit/, you're probably looking for the kind of stuff that they would throw away.

[Anonymous No.16959897]

OLD NEW GOOD BAD

[Anonymous No.16959902]

>>16957257
Very nice.

>tfw no midnights in the library at oxford

[Anonymous No.16959903]

>>16959897
Yes unironically

[Anonymous No.16959912]

>>16956995
They have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to be profitable so all they sell is airport lit and shitty YA. Only the very small passion project ones are worth visiting since you can find obscure stuff that you wouldn't have looked at otherwise.

[Anonymous No.16959929]

>>16957006
Because of industrialism, capitalism and atheism.

[Anonymous No.16959936]

>>16956995
I honestly can’t imagine the kind of person 90% of the books you find in modern stores are targeted towards. Most of them have atrociously designed covers and you’d think the ones that seem to want to appear somewhat serious won’t find much of an audience when other books treating the same topics are better in every way, seemingly more popular, and not exactly hard to find either.

[Anonymous No.16959944]

>>16956995
everything modern sucks
>>16957006
fpbp

[Anonymous No.16960098]

>>16959936
Look at any kind of popularity chart on goodreads and you can imagine that kind of person perfectly. Like 80% of book readers are massive plebs who only read shitty airport novels, romance and YA.

[Anonymous No.16960133]

>>16957696
For the amount of space they have, there are a lot of blind spots. The philosophy section doesn't have enough books to actually give one a well-rounded philosophy education. It's a single shelf, most of which is pop-Stoicism or "The Philosophy of Rick and Morty." I would like bookstores to carry enough books to satisfy the key readings of most fields, especially the classics. A student and an educated person should be able to walk in there and find something valuable. Instead, it's almost all consumerist pulp.

[Anonymous No.16960135]

>>16960098
Vast majority of people never read, and most of the people who do read stick exclusively to pop fiction focus-tested corporate garbage. Feelsbad.

[Anonymous No.16960164]

>>16957006
We've forgotten what matters.

[Anonymous No.16960186]

>>16957040
My only issue with Amazon is sizing
Even though they give dimensions and I measure it out beforehand sometimes I find the books are too big and unwieldly to be held comfortably

[Anonymous No.16960208]

>>16960186
just get a kindle, then all the books are the same size

[Anonymous No.16960244]

>>16957072
>sad little history section
In my local Barnes and Noble it's more like a gigantic cringe pop-history section

[Anonymous No.16960256]

>>16960186
Also the fact that getting a specific version can be a massive bitch. Their interface for choosing a printing is fucking atrocious. They also seem to have hired the orc army from LOTR to handle their packages because i have yet to receive a book from them that doesn't have some kind of damage somewhere.

[Anonymous No.16960272]

>>16960135
Problem is that classic literature has a stigma of being difficult and complex and its not accurate at all. Most of the "classics" are actually fairly easy and entertaining reads.

[Anonymous No.16960278]

>>16959869
Any tips on breaking into a bookstore dumpster, anon?

[Anonymous No.16960281]

>>16957881
Some good content but not that funny given the length of your post. Distil the humour in future.

[Anonymous No.16960290]

>>16960278
I guess it depends on location. The one I go to is behind a strip mall and there is never anybody back there at night. The dumpsters are usually just sitting unlocked for the pickings. Maybe in a more urban area they would be locked up.

[Anonymous No.16960317]

>>16960256
Yeah I've also received damaged or dirty books, its incredibly disheartening
My copy of 12 Rules (yeah yeah I know) was ripped, covered in dirt and the laminated sleeve was half peeled. No idea how the hell it ended up like that but I tried to return and they just refunded my money

[Anonymous No.16960321]

>>16957047
my bookinist booths are all great, theres a huge row of them in the center and countless stand-alones near metro stations/etc
t. moscow anon

[Anonymous No.16960334]

>>16957124
this post made me sad. very cool to have access to such items for cheap but it reminds me of drug addicts selling off their family jewelry

[Anonymous No.16960351]

>>16960321
how does it feel reading dostoevsky in the original language?

[Anonymous No.16960367]

>>16960351
overrated. i'm probably too young to love him but i much prefer Chekhov and Gogol

[Anonymous No.16960380]

>>16960367
Chekhov is nice, Palata no 6 is probably my favorite.

[Anonymous No.16960402]

>>16960380
based taste, western man
not to mention Chekhov was also a prominent social figure with his medical profession

[Anonymous No.16960436]

>>16960317
I bought a nice clothbound copy of Dracula and it looked like someone rammed a dirty screwdriver into the side. At least they sent me a new one without needing it back.

[Anonymous No.16960500]

>>16957006
>safe and secure
>abundance of resources available to you on-demand
Yeah modernity really sucks dude.
>b-b-but this sort of materialism is precisely why modernity sucks!
No, weak will and hyper-consumptive tendencies are responsible for such "modernity misery". Wrestle with and overcome these weak tendencies, and modernity couldn't be better.

[Anonymous No.16960523]

>>16960402
yeah, very sad that he was abused as a kid and had a very difficult life and living at a very difficult time in general. I read russian as well, hopefully I will get to Gogol next year.

[Anonymous No.16960539]

>>16956995
yep. 2nd hand thrift shops usually have the coolest readers too. i chatted with the cashier about ayn rand just to see how she would react and they are def anti-censorship no matter how 'problematic' the content. 2nd hand thrift or bust.

[Anonymous No.16960546]

>>16960500
>Listen fellow, we're safe and secure in here. You just need to overcome your weak tendencies, and the cage couldn't be better.

[Anonymous No.16960561]

>>16960546
Wow, powerful. God, you're so oppressed, aren't you.

[Anonymous No.16960563]

>>16960500

Ah yes, security and wealth. The most important virtues

[Anonymous No.16960576]

>>16960563
Try being honorable when you're starving, let me know how it works out.

[Anonymous No.16960589]

>>16960576

The only time one CAN be honorable is under conditions of hardship. Holding the door for your mom's bull doesn't count.

[Anonymous No.16960597]

>>16956995
To survive in Amazon's world on top of already razor thin margins bookstores essentially have to stock their shelves exclusively with treacly bestsellers with only the occasional wildcard shuffled in. The trend is toward generic uniformity across all bookstores.

[Anonymous No.16960603]

Why are those big bookstores bad, though?
I find them half as bad, atmosphere wise.
Especially if they have cafes.
They have room to breath, are wide, you can sit and shop around.

Is this really such a contrarian take?

[Anonymous No.16960605]

>>16960589
I hope that the world of hardships you so desire comes to fruition, that you may finally have the opportunity to show everyone just how virtuous you really are.

[Anonymous No.16960611]

>>16960272
This is true.

[Anonymous No.16960618]

>>16956995
Globohomo.

[Anonymous No.16960738]

>>16959371
the last glacial maximum desu. i wanna hunt mammoths with my bros.

[Anonymous No.16960766]

>>16956995
NO ONE fucking reads man. reading is a meme now. it's turning into an obscure hobby like philately. i think the 20s to 60s were peak reading due to the rise in literacy and the novel being a very popular form of entertainment. even brainlets would read here and there. who the fuck reads now? even people here barely read.

[Anonymous No.16960808]

>>16957060
It's Jews

[Anonymous No.16961349]

>>16957257
I wish blackwells had been less corporate than it was, though the front reading room off the neros was quite comfy

[Anonymous No.16961424]

Indie bookstores are even worse than Barnes and noble, the best way to buy books is used online and used book stores.

[Anonymous No.16961730]

>>16960334
Yeah it's a weird feeling opening a book and seeing it signed with a name in beautiful handwriting and dated to the late 1800's. All the thoughts that person had as they read the same pages as you have been gone for over a century. Anybody they ever knew is probably dead. Their little signature in the front page is probably one of the last bits of material evidence that they ever lived at all.
Pic related was the poem that I found, the book was '100 years, the Royal Canadian Regiment'

[Anonymous No.16961741]

>>16960766
>who the fuck reads now?
women, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.16961757]

>>16957154
>>16961730
Worry not anon

[Anonymous No.16961983]

>>16961741
yea there's the answer. thats why bookstores are shit. women consooming books from oprahs book club.

[Anonymous No.16962002]

>>16961730
hauntingly beautiful poem. have you tried tracking down their descendants or something?

[Anonymous No.16962160]

>>16961730
You should probably type that poem out and archive it somewhere. Would be a shame if it got lost to time. I don't know shit about poetry but it seems pretty good.

[Anonymous No.16962496]

>>16957257
>Because in your heart, you wish there were a communal space filled with books and frequented by interesting people that didn't smell like the homeless. You hold a similar disappointment with libraries and coffeeshops. You seek a certain magical, intellectually saturating atmosphere that you believe an in-person book buying experience should provide

i live in south america and in my city every year they organize a book´s fair, so it seems this type of soullessness is exclusive to anglo societies

[Anonymous No.16962588]

>>16957006
Because consumerism isn't aesthetic.

[Anonymous No.16962600]

>>16962496
>i live in south america
And nobody envies your cholera polluted water.

[Anonymous No.16962652]

>>16960256
>have yet to receive a book from them that doesn't have some kind of damage somewhere.
I’ve only received ONE that was not clearly damaged. Including the exchange requests they fulfilled several times per (new) book. It’s in fathomable to me.

[Anonymous No.16962726]

The average people read absolute trash, so they have to cater to that.

Fucking used bookstores are not much better neither, you just get you rocks off from finding weird books for cheap. Having said that, I haven't bought a single new book from a bookstore this year, all used.

[Anonymous No.16962746]

>>16956995
Is there a good place to buy collections of hardbacks with good print?

[Anonymous No.16963235]

>>16957006
You probably only disagree with its aesthetics. Modern life and it's quality of living is all you've ever know. You'd likely be very uncomfortable outside of it.

[Anonymous No.16963522]

>>16959856
Well anon, I am writting a dissertation on it has we speak. 1100 words before midnight. Got 200 yet.
Tl;dr you guys could argue with me: trought pain comes creations -> culture avoids pain ->lack of beauty brings the abstract to be more prevalent over the concrete -> the lust for the concrete (real) brings search of the real -> the search is viewed gradually more important then the experience of reality

Writting in french so some wording in this tl;dr could be wrong. Be indulgent anons.

[Anonymous No.16963532]

go to bookstores artfags frequent.

[Anonymous No.16963604]

>>16957295
wtf now i hate nazi germany

[Anonymous No.16963680]

>>16956995
They're designed for low IQ women

[Anonymous No.16963707]

>>16963522
how did you get a handle on that obscure language?

[Anonymous No.16963754]

>>16960135
be my gf

[Anonymous No.16963757]

>>16957338
"Kids" entertainment just holds children back. They're a lot more capable than most people think.

[Anonymous No.16963775]

>hey do you have [classic title]?
>no.

[Anonymous No.16963851]

>>16963707
From my previous life

[Anonymous No.16964228]

>>16962600
it seems that amerimutts are aggresive by nature, barbarian blood is running through their veins, which explains their aggresiveness when in contact with an orderly society

[Anonymous No.16964350]

>>16960561
Yes, I am.

[Anonymous No.16964383]

>modern bookstores suck

[Anonymous No.16964386]

>>16964383
Looks like a place Id get stuck in during a dream

[Anonymous No.16964571]

>>16964386
I know the feel anon

[Anonymous No.16964576]

>>16957006
NOW BAD! OLD GOOD!

[Anonymous No.16964642]

>>16964576
Plastic and concrete : GOOD
Craftsmanship and beauty : BAD

[Anonymous No.16964655]

>>16964576
Recognition of beauty : BAD
Defeated acceptance of repugnance : GOOD

[Anonymous No.16964711]

>>16960334
Everything is ephemeral.

[Anonymous No.16964871]

>>16961741
I booktube has taught me anything, young girls read fiction for young girls, old men read books by dead men.

I'm definitely exaggerating, but not entirely inaccurate

[Anonymous No.16964886]

>>16959869
Anon literally reading trash

[Anonymous No.16964906]

>>16961730
Some random veteran completely btfo /lit/ poets

[Anonymous No.16964989]

>>16962588
>>16963235
Yeah, it's the aesthetics and the lack of spirituality which is an extension of aesthetics. Why did our culture have to be so ugly?

[Z No.16965853]

>>16957295
>F. Scott Fitzgerald
??? All the writers that were gay/ Jewish like Proust I can understand or actually writing anti war novels like papa Hemingway I understand but fucking Fitzgerald? Did the great gatsby hit a bit to close to home for Hitler?

[Anonymous No.16965879]

>>16965853
Hitler was not a big fan of Jazz

[Anonymous No.16965955]

>tfw cities are fucking dead for the coming hard times/decades
>tfw that cafe/bookstore you wanted to make can't happen

[Anonymous No.16965962]

>>16961730
You need to send a copy of this to the national archives of Canada ASAP

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16965971]

>>16960808
Jewish nationalism, supremacists, theism in general, all bad, but I swear, capitalism in the hands of any other in groups isn’t going to be any different. Stop the idiot meme

>>16959849
Ending capitalism would transform the human mind and book stores would vanish. You would be left with wonderful libraries

[Anonymous No.16965981]

>>16965971
Jewish """nationalism"""

[Anonymous No.16965989]

>>16959897
literally 99.9999% of the times, yes

[Anonymous No.16965995]

Just buy books off the digital market and walk to a comfy cafe anon.

[Anonymous No.16966005]

>>16965971
You don't want capitalism (i.e., corporations) nor the state. Tell me, then, who will produce books for you to purchase? End capitalism and books will literally vanish.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16966016]

>>16965981
They call it zionism, anon. It’s the same thing.

>>16966005
>purchase

[Anonymous No.16966841]

>>16956995
Did the girl behind the counter not compliment your genius?

[Anonymous No.16966855]

>>16960186
>>16960256
I prefer Amazon, but ebay is honestly more accurate for what you choose. Several of what I've ordered from Amazon have been different editions. But that's because all sellers need to do is plug in the ISBN and condition, Amazon lumps it with the rest.

[Anonymous No.16966928]

>>16956995
Women are permitted to keep their shoes in

[Anonymous No.16966949]

They have a knowledge problem that makes them extremely inefficient in comparison to online retailers like Amazon. They have only so much space and resources to buy books and they have no real way of knowing what people want so they have to limit heir stock to what they think appeals to the most people. The common man is a basic bitch so we get basic bitch books for sale.

[Anonymous No.16966963]

>>16963522
I would gladly read the whole of it if you are willing to post it.
>through pain come creations
This sort of seem like a weak premise to me. I would be more inclined to think that change and diversity of stimuli (in which pain can be implied as a possibility, but not as the only one) are stimulating for creativity. When people wanted to make art they went to big cities and exposed themselves to multiple ideas, not (solely) to trauma.

>lack of beauty brings the abstract to be more prevalent of the concrete
Not sure how it relates to previous points, but you need three categories here (beauty, abstract, concrete) to be well defined. Hopefully this is only a problem because the post is short.

>the search of the real is more important than the experience of the real
These are also two horribly problematic categories, especially the second one, as the experience of the real really is something difficult to define if you don't explain how it is built and in what form it is accessible.

I am looking forward to read it anon.

[Anonymous No.16966971]

>>16957295
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_banned_in_Nazi_Germany
wtf it's literally a recommendation list, did they want people not to have fun at all when reading?

[Anonymous No.16966985]

>>16957881
six lines of a post that prove you rarely have any real human interaction

[Anonymous No.16966989]

>>16961730
thats great. hope his ghost witnessed the recognition you gave to his work

[Anonymous No.16967018]

>>16956995
I think it's because most of the people that read are girls, and girls have terrible fucking taste in literature thus bookstores cater to them since they are the majority of its clientele. An experiment to make is if bookstores had a more mature selection, then maybe the customers would be better read?

[Anonymous No.16967032]

>>16967018
whoa bro cool it with the misogyny
you think you are better than girls?

[Anonymous No.16967036]

>>16960256
I've ordered about a hundred books on amazon over a decade and had damage on only one of them. I played the annoying customer and sent pics with a polite but inflammatory message and was reimbursed immediately by Bezos drones because I'm a good prime goy (customer).

[Anonymous No.16967360]

>>16957088
>>trans kid drag shows
>How is that leftist?
He is using the Uncle Ted definition of leftist which, while not the same definition used by self-diagnosed "leftists" (not that there is leftist or "rightist" praxis left alive anywhere on earth - we have all be coopted by consumerism and idpol), there hasnt really been a better word developed and widely recognized to describe the cultural bootlickers who have been sucked in and become the willing foot soldiers of the status quo powers.

[Anonymous No.16967376]

>>16957295
well if its on wikipedia i blindly believe these were all truly banned and people were aggressively punished for reading these books because that is consistent with the saturday morning cartoon villain fairy tale I was taught all my life and just like what they said in one of the dozens of holocaust museums In the US ran by only the most honest people on earth

[Anonymous No.16967391]

>>16957234
Be nice. They stay in their designated thread and don't flood the board with multiple active threads about scifi and fantasy trash.

[Anonymous No.16967401]

>>16967018
Or if you try to appeal to "serious" readers in any genre, from any demographic, it becomes impossible to stock all the obscure shit they want.

Best sellers are easy to stock.

[Anonymous No.16967409]

>>16964228
>barbarian blood is running through their veins
Makes sense considering so many of them are 1/64th Cherokee.

[Anonymous No.16967415]

>>16959371
Hellenic and enlightenment eras

[Anonymous No.16967449]

>>16960256
>They also seem to have hired the orc army from LOTR to handle their packages
Don't be racist.

[Anonymous No.16967673]

>>16957013
>[Deleted]
The absolute state of 4Tranny

[Anonymous No.16968341]

>>16957257
this reminds me of the scholastic book fairs I'd have in middle school/elementary school. I'd always be so excited circling the books I wanted on the catalog and have a blast just roaming around the fair looking if anything else would catch my eye, the smell of new books was intoxicating.

[Anonymous No.16968387]

>>16957314
>>16957305
Orthodox is also Catholic
Catholic is not always Orthodox
Roman Catholic theocracy is excellent as it leaves very much space for personal freedom, while having safeguards against institutional degeneracy
Orthodox theocracy would also be excellent in theory as the only difference from the Roman Catholic theocracy is in the manner of accommodating freedoms, being stronger in the rural areas and weaker in the cities
Unfortunately, the nation-specific implementation of Orthodoxy ends up creating two problems which place it in a clear disadvantage:
1. it makes the religion extremely vulnerable to just being just an extension of the state (as in politics/secret services)
2. it makes it very hard to join if your country doesn't have a "local franchise" of Orthodoxy... meaning you need to join one of the "visiting franchises," most/all of which are just fronts for diaspora surveillance

[Anonymous No.16968545]

>>16957252
supremely based post anon wish I could afford a transatlantic flight

[Anonymous No.16968806]

>He doesn't have a Boffins
The one in Perth is pretty fantastic.