本屋さん Honya-san
There used to be a time when I would spend every weekend in my local bookstore chewing away books as the sun slowly fell and the island turned into this warm shade of orange.
The bookstore was just minutes away from my house and was also on my way home both from the ferry dock and my school. I still remember one time after school, when a friend and I saw only one copy of Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows left on the shelves. With nothing but coins left in our pockets, we each vowed to snatch the copy before the other. Most unfortunately for him, he lived off the island, and now the book sits quietly behind me on my bookshelf, nearly 10 years later. Oh, the joy I had seeing his face turn to a bright shade of red as I was informing him of my victory.
Last year I returned to the island for the first time six years after I had moved away. Excited to see what the bookstore is now like, I could only find a massively commercialized storefront with sparsely put books decorating the shelves, while the majority of the store has been reshaped for souvenirs like postcards and stamps. This was not an isolated case. Another tiny bookstore, just steps away from this one, once owned by a slouched dainty old lady (who once angrily expelled me for reading a manga instead of buying it, my Nobita moment I suppose), had been turned into a souvenir shop. Another book shop–while not frequented by me in those days, was one I visited often with my father–could not escape the same fate.
This all seemed inevitable with the rise of the e-age, the age of the internet and its many new branches of commercialism. Maybe this was a doomed business from the start, but it can't wipe away that nostalgia in my heart, that little pain hearing the closing of bookstores one after another.
Honestly, I can't verbalize exactly why bookstores hold such a place in my heart. When I got to go back to Taiwan this past year, I concluded the trip with a suitcase stuffed with piles of books from all the bookstores I visited and not much else. There's an unexplainable joy and a sense of attachment that accompanies purchasing a book in a bookstore. Not that online shopping can't be meaningful. I can't tell you how touched I was to have received a book as a Christmas present this past winter through Amazon. But at the end of the day, there's something deeply moving about physical bookstores, something irreplaceable.
Post by David
The bookstore was just minutes away from my house and was also on my way home both from the ferry dock and my school. I still remember one time after school, when a friend and I saw only one copy of Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows left on the shelves. With nothing but coins left in our pockets, we each vowed to snatch the copy before the other. Most unfortunately for him, he lived off the island, and now the book sits quietly behind me on my bookshelf, nearly 10 years later. Oh, the joy I had seeing his face turn to a bright shade of red as I was informing him of my victory.
Last year I returned to the island for the first time six years after I had moved away. Excited to see what the bookstore is now like, I could only find a massively commercialized storefront with sparsely put books decorating the shelves, while the majority of the store has been reshaped for souvenirs like postcards and stamps. This was not an isolated case. Another tiny bookstore, just steps away from this one, once owned by a slouched dainty old lady (who once angrily expelled me for reading a manga instead of buying it, my Nobita moment I suppose), had been turned into a souvenir shop. Another book shop–while not frequented by me in those days, was one I visited often with my father–could not escape the same fate.
This all seemed inevitable with the rise of the e-age, the age of the internet and its many new branches of commercialism. Maybe this was a doomed business from the start, but it can't wipe away that nostalgia in my heart, that little pain hearing the closing of bookstores one after another.
Honestly, I can't verbalize exactly why bookstores hold such a place in my heart. When I got to go back to Taiwan this past year, I concluded the trip with a suitcase stuffed with piles of books from all the bookstores I visited and not much else. There's an unexplainable joy and a sense of attachment that accompanies purchasing a book in a bookstore. Not that online shopping can't be meaningful. I can't tell you how touched I was to have received a book as a Christmas present this past winter through Amazon. But at the end of the day, there's something deeply moving about physical bookstores, something irreplaceable.
Post by David
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