Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

I read the Jason Epstein book last night, Book Business (see post below), and it is both damning and hopeful. He was an editor at Doubleday and Random House, and co-founded The New York Review of Books, and The Library of America series of classics, and he sums up concisely what the problems of the publishing industry and the retail book industry are. The book was published in 2001, but it doesn't feel dated, despite the surge in internet publishing and blogging and the like. Epstein reminds us that people who work with books do so, and for the most part have always done so, because of the love of books, reading, authors, the editorial process, etc., and not for money. Conglomerates made the mistake of thinking that publishing houses were capable of making serious money. They are not, really, because the product they produce is not just another product, hence predictions about sales or lack thereof rarely pan out. Publishing is a business of tiny margins (no pun intended). Anyway, read the book for the rest of the story. There are facts and figures, and inside dishing, which may not interest the casual reader, but I ate it up. And many times, Epstein really shines, as here:

"My ambition was evangelical. I wanted to share with the world the literary euphoria I had enjoyed at Columbia College. In those days I thought of myself as a missionary. In fact, I was only a book publisher; however, the vocations differed only in the contents of their respective scriptures." (p.67)

He points to, most hopefully, a future involving actual bookstores, no matter what else comes down the pike:

"...a civilization without retail booksellers is unimaginable. Like shrines and other sacred meeting places, bookstores are essential artifacts of human nature. The feel of a book taken from the shelf and held in the hand is a magical experience, linking writer to reader. But to compete with the World Wide Web, bookstores of the future will be different from the mass-oriented superstores that now dominate the retail marketplace. Tomorrow's stores will have to be what the Web cannot be: tangible, intimate, and local..." (p.38)

I think there will always be, in each upcoming generation, certain people who want to spend (most of!) the days of their lives surrounded by books, and who are willing to trade (most of!) the shiny trappings of an affluent soctiety for what really brings them happiness. Here's one now: a recent commenter on this blog, who has started her own, and who obviously has the book-zeal we're talking about here. I'll be watching with interest and best wishes!