Christmas Shopping

Weird as it sounds, I went Christmas shopping last week at Barnes & Noble. For myself.  I was using a gift card that had been given to me last Christmas, a year ago, but I had stashed it inside a book.  I only discovered it last week and realized, "Holy Cow, I'd better get to Barnes & Noble before it closes!"

Glad I went.  Most of the inventory was marked way down . . . like going out of business down, which is the fate of most bookstores these days.  Waldens has bit the dust.  Barnes & Noble stores are closing by the droves.  And Amazon recently announced that people buy more Kindle versions of books via Amazon than they do paper editions.  Another few years, I'm afraid bookstores may go the way of the Do Do Bird.  Wow.  It's a changing world. 

And changing for writers, too.  Publishers are having to adapt so quickly to the new world that they are uncertain, now, of the viability of books or, more specifically, the ability of publisher/editor/writer to make even a marginal profit from a book, especially the electronic versions. On the most recent cover of The New Yorker, a cartoon depicts a gentleman in the new bookstore--a place now stocked with coffee mugs, T-shirts, and electronic readers . . . and one tiny shelf of printed material. 

But writers still write.

And, while I'm writing . . . I can read.  I walked out of Barnes & Noble last week with an armload of discounted titles, including John Updike's last title (published by his family posthumously), an ACT test book for my son (if, indeed, he has the guts to take the ACT), and a collection of essays.

This is my first Christmas shopping foray of the year.  Probably my last.  (I hate crowds.)  It's just too bad it took a year for me to use that gift card.