/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15601868]

i went to my local bookstore for the first time ever and the classics section was no more than a 3 metre wide shelf. the rest of the store were packed with cookbooks, young adult novels, and autobiographies written by literal whos. the 'guy' at the register was wearing makeup too. what is your local bookstore like?

[Anonymous No.15601884]

Most bookstores are like that because having people buy books is important for them. Try a used bookstore.

[Anonymous No.15602006]

>>15601868
There’s a bookstore under the apartment a friend of mine lives that for some reason is open 24 hours a day, even was during quarantine, and apparently talks about Fox News a lot. I’m really curious about it but I didn’t go in because I was busy and paranoid about getting covid germs that didn’t exist, because nobody ever went into that book shop anyway.

[Anonymous No.15602075]

I live in Seattle and can never seem to find much of the western canon or philosophical classics in any of the stores or libraries

Hillary Clinton biographies and wine-mom “feminist” cash grab books displayed heavily in the windows. Especially the bookstore in downtown Bainbridge

[Anonymous No.15602269]

>>15602075
Try Twice Sold Tales in Capitol Hill (idk if they’re in the CHAZ zone or not but its by the light rail station. There might be another in Ballard? I haven’t lived in Seattle for about 6 months so a little rusty on the memory) They do 25% off the whole store between 6 and 9 PM

Unless you’re trying to find specific translations of something obscure or something too popular for used stores to keep in stock very long (the only things they’ve ever not had that I was looking for were the Mamet translation of The Cherry Orchard and Norwegian Wood.

Had a bunch of cats floating around which was a wood atmosphere at first but I’ve grown to appreciate the charm

[Anonymous No.15602272]

>>15601868
i live in a relatively small state capitol and my local bookstore usually has a solid classics section, sorry anons.

[Anonymous No.15602292]

>>15601868
3 metres is quite a lot of books though

[Anonymous No.15602350]

>be me
>go to a local bookstore
>the aisles are less than 1m wide
>there are piles of books on the ground all along the aisles
>have to sidestep through the aisles to get through
>knock multiple piles over
a toast! to my clumsiness!

[Anonymous No.15602368]

>>15602292
yeah, wtf is this thread, doesn't sound like an amazing spot but nothing terrible---om sure one of those amazon stores is worse

[Anonymous No.15602405]

>>15601868
Sadly it's true that most people who get a sense of identity and shallow self-value from books are left wing, and totally dominate the bookstore business in city's because "hipsterrrs!" if you want to use boomer talk, but it isn't wrong.

I bought Mein Kampf there once and they just gave me funny looks, I even bought Milton Friedman's Free to Choose and Marx's Capital with it but that didn't matter to them.

Then I realise they're sensitive and insecure, which is the reason for their behaviour,

[Anonymous No.15602457]

>>15602292
>>15602368
the 3 metre bookshelf was mostly the same books stocked up. there were probably 20 copies of lolita, 40 of 1984, 20 of dorian grey. there were mostly penguin classics of no more than maybe 12 different kinds of books and then a metre wide of miscellaneous other classics like complete works of shakepseare and mythology by edith hamilton. it seemed too arbitrary and incomplete

[Anonymous No.15602489]

>turns out local bookstore was a front for stolen library books
oh

[Anonymous No.15602491]

Last time I went to a physical bookstore there were Harry Potter books in the literature section.

[Anonymous No.15603552]

>>15601868
Used bookstores are the way to go, most chic bookstores are filled with psueds.

[Anonymous No.15603621]

>go to local book store
>pick up Mein Kampf, Lolita, and The God Delusion
>light up a stogie while waiting in line
>thumb through all the expensive knick-knacks next to the checkout, knocking several onto the floor, and telling my fellow line-waiters to "look at all this horseshit"
>finally get to the checkout
>array my books on the counter all facing up, facing towards the cashier, a chubby girl in her early 20s.
>she looks down at them and pauses, her mouth hangs open in disbelief as the fuhrer himself stares back up at her
>blow smoke in her face and ask "some kind of problem, toots?"
>she coughs and nervously stutters the name of the book, as if to verify that anyone could ever purchase it intentionally
>"yeah" I reply, and tapping the cover of Lolita with my finger while leaning over to her side of the counter.
>"and this one's about a pedophile"
>her face is now awash with fear and horror
>"oh my god" she mutters
>"God's dead, honey"
>everyone around us goes dead silent
>scoop up my books and leave with them under my arm, unpaid for

[Anonymous No.15603832]

>>15603621

I have a similar kind of experience regarding Mein Kampf

>go to local library
>pick up Mein Kampf
>go to the counter
>white tranny with rastas is looking at me smiling
>"yea I can't let you take that piece of shit" t. tranny
>he takes the book and throws it over his shoulder

it happened here in sweden 10 years ago

[Anonymous No.15603873]

>economics section is a single shelf of Rich Dad Poor Dad

[Anonymous No.15603875]

>>15602405
I bought Mein Kampf as well when i went to visit New York from Australia. The big black lady rolled her eyes and had to grab a key to unlock the shelf it was on in the store room. I look back at it and i can't believe how autistic 15 year old me was. Was my only fond memory of New York though, we visited a modern art museum after where I saw an 'artistic' of a couple gays having an orgy. Just made me more bitter in regard to society.

[Anonymous No.15603880]

>>15603875
Really fucked up my grammar in this post

[Anonymous No.15603900]

>>15601868
>be me
>revisit one of my favourite book shops
>they sell trash Mangas and haute culture bande déssinées next to each other
>self-help for housewives and Tibetan mysticism
>new hyped hacks and underrated masters
>love this place

[Anonymous No.15603906]

>>15603875
Why would you even want to go to New York?

[Anonymous No.15603911]

>>15602457
Fake until true.

No bookstore has 40 copies of the same book for multiple books on its shelves unless its a bestseller which you're saying its not.

[Anonymous No.15603912]

>>15603832
>Sweden

[Anonymous No.15603917]

>>15601868
90% young adult stuff and similar shit noone cares about. theres not even a 'classics' section and the philosophy section if half of a 1m wide shelf with mostly secondary literature by literally who the other stuff is "sociology" book about how the neonazis will overthrow our country any second now. the worst thing about this is that I think its one of the biggest book store chains in the country

[Anonymous No.15603922]

>>15601868
Weird. In the UK, we have mostly Waterstones and they have all type of books you can imagine by section. There are some stores bigger than others depending on the town obviously but they still feel pretty complete when it comes to classics and non-fiction. I went to another bookstore franchise in Cambridge and they were pretty cool as well, got all the ancient Greek books I wanted from there.

[Anonymous No.15603924]

>>15603911
anon the guy behind the counter was wearing makeup, the entire experience seemed surreal

[Anonymous No.15603933]

>>15603922
This, I live in York and Waterstones never fails to deliver on classics, philosophy, and history. Even some of the local bookstores here, especially in the old town, have great collections.

[Anonymous No.15603978]

>>15603906
I was only 15, my uncle lives there, and that's generally what foreigners think america is, Los Angelas and New York City. They both were filthy shit holes and I just wanted to go home, as i expected. But other than that the rest of the country was comfy and uit would be good fun to road trip around all the rural areas, but fuck paying 1.5k for a ticket.

[Anonymous No.15603981]

>>15603900
i wonder what her favourite book is

[Anonymous No.15603987]

>>15603978
>But other than that the rest of the country was comfy and uit would be good fun to road trip around all the rural areas,
Very true. Everyone in New York just seemed like an asshole, I don't think I met a single happy or sincere person.

[Anonymous No.15603997]

>>15603981
Moby's dick

[Anonymous No.15604001]

>>15603981
Wuthering Nights

[Anonymous No.15604009]

>>15601868
>bookstore wants to sell overpriced trash instead of 50+ year old books that everyone has a copy of
Yeah weird, OP. Why would bookstores do this?

[Anonymous No.15604019]

>>15603981
Infinite Breast

[Anonymous No.15604022]

>>15603621
Based

[Anonymous No.15604030]

>>15603997
>>15604001
>>15604019

[Anonymous No.15604042]

Every year the Philosophy section, history section, and classics section at Barnes and Noble gets smaller while the woke shit gets bigger. They also have rows and rows of “STEM” toys so little Timmy doesn’t fall behind.

[Anonymous No.15604049]

>>15601868
Problem is anon, you want the bookstore to live up to some fantasy of yours, the owners of the store want to do business. Why aren't there volumes of Shakespeare and Cervantes all along the wall? Because those books are already in educated people's parents' homes and easy to get/order from libraries if not. Classics that are neither widely owned nor in libraries are nonetheless typically out of copyright, thus low priced and offer poor bookshelf space : profit ratios. What books will they sell instead? Books that are read by the majority of citizens - lowbrow by definition. Books for schoolchildren - YA or certain classics. New novels you have never heard of. Some of which will be good, though none of us can be bothered to do the hard work of sifting through hours worth of shit ones.