Comments on: Local Bookstores and the Writers Who Love Them

By: Melanie Yarbrough

Melanie Yarbrough — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:47:18 +0000

I think the state of the publishing industry can be measured by the state of the local bookstore. When people lose sight of its importance, then we should be worried.

I love my local bookstore! Harvard Bookstore: http://bit.ly/bixVm4

By: To Local Bookstores: Shut Up and Stop Whining « Half Past Noon

To Local Bookstores: Shut Up and Stop Whining « Half Past Noon — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:20:02 +0000

[...] recently re-tweeted a link to this, a write-up about an author doing his best to save, or at least “treasure,” local [...]

By: D-Lab (hazy shade of winter version) « Expository Thoughts

D-Lab (hazy shade of winter version) « Expository Thoughts — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:53:36 +0000

[...] “Daddy, what were local bookstores like?” (here) [...]

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:05:22 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by byronborger: Please retweet this, about local bookshops. http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2010/01/local-bookstores-and-the-writers-who-love-them/...

By: Steve Yates

Steve Yates — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:00:13 +0000

I’m thrilled that Jeremiah is on this case, both here and at Poets & Writers. For University Press of Mississippi, I keep a squidoo lens of independent bookstores in the state at http://www.squidoo.com/Mississippi-Bookstores

And the same for Louisiana at
http://www.squidoo.com/Louisiana-Bookstores

By: Josh Cooney

Josh Cooney — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:20:04 +0000

Excellent post, Mr. Salyer.

By: J.D. Salyer

J.D. Salyer — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:10:08 +0000

And if the *typical* conservative possessed your inquisitiveness, Mr. Cheeks, America would be in far better shape. Paleoconservatives represent the conservative populace writ large in approximately the same way that Sir Thomas More represents lawyers.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:37:43 +0000

“How many conservatives are actually interested in reading anything aside from hagiographical histories of WWII, and the latest from Anne Coulter and Glenn Beck?”
Dude, I’m paleo and reading Voegelin, Edith Stein, and Von Schelling!

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:35:16 +0000

Willson,
As you know, I’m with you. Conservatives exist, proudly so. I can’t tell you how many times a friend and I do a little comedy routine about being “close-minded” after being called…heaven forfend…a “conservative” as though it were an insult.

My insults are cast the way of party politics as practiced currently. A discursive form of government needs principled liberals and principled conservatives . Unfortunately, while there is a lot of talk in Washington, it is no longer a discursive government.

By: J.D. Salyer

J.D. Salyer — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:32:17 +0000

The tendency for a lot of independent businesses to lean left (coffeeshops are another obvious example) points to one submerged challenge to localism: Money is not the only form of hegemony. I daresay that, deliberately or no, many self-professed “localists” take their intellectual cues from faraway celebrities who are “hot” in the academic & artsy scene, in much the same way that others may take their marching orders from Big Business or Big Government.

Of course the takeover of independent enterprise by the Left is something for which conservatives have only themselves to blame, as with the corruption of youth in general.

Some of my fellow officers in the Navy often referred to me as a “Commie” because of my habit of reading Dostoevsky in my off-time instead of wholesome all-American technothrillers. Admittedly the cracks were good-natured, but the irony should be clear, I hope.

For quite some time, the bulk of American conservatives have regarded the liberal arts and humane learning with indifference if not skepticism if not contempt.

Business, management, science, math — now *those* are the disciplines which make for both a strong country and well-paying jobs for our kids. Most of the self-described conservatives I know wouldn’t give Plato or Virgil or Samuel Johnson the time of day.

Then — having ceded the realm of tradition, character formation, and the imagination to the Left — these same folks turn around and wring their hands and wonder why their kids have taken to wearing nose rings and Che Guevera T-shirts.

Obviously this is not directed at anybody participating in this thread — but it is a general pattern. If anyone doesn’t recognize it, then I daresay he/she hasn’t met very many Republicans.

So obviously the lefties will be running and dominating most of the independent bookstores. How many conservatives are actually interested in reading anything aside from hagiographical histories of WWII, and the latest from Anne Coulter and Glenn Beck?

By: John Willson

John Willson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:10:52 +0000

Sabin,
I’m one. The picture of me on this site should show you what one looks like. It’s a picture of a portrait done by a conservative artist. I’m getting more and more amused at the number of self-described intelligent people who want to abandon a good word. It doesn’t even bother me that neocons want to appropriate it–they won’t get away with it, nor will the enemies of those who wish to conserve good things. The unwillingness to accept a perfectly good label is snobbish, I think, and not always reflective of good grace. So what that it isn’t precise?

By: rufus

rufus — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:27:45 +0000

I guess I’ve either been lucky in the book stores I visit, or books like The Aeneid aren’t as controversial as I’d like to believe. I do usually get a slight chill from local record store employees who apparently find my tastes to be a bit unsophisticated, but my usual response is to laugh about it on the way to my car. The teenaged lower functionaries at most stores are ill-mannered now, and it matters not a whit.

I will say that I attended a number of social gatherings with people my age (mid-30s) over the holidays and I got the impression that none of them were reading anything these days. It’s hard to imagine that the general decline in active literacy has played no part at all in the decline of bookstores. Even the big chain stores around here have gone from being solely bookstores to being candle, CD, and yoga mat dispensaries with a few shelves of books. The biggest chain in Ontario is Chapters, a bookstore for people who are slowly admitting to themselves that they don’t really like to read.

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:49:06 +0000

Daniel,
If, in the last several decades you can come up with a few and consistent good examples of honest Liberal vs. Conservative debate where the partisans are not speaking out of both sides of their mouth on a host of issues while the nation accrues mondo debt and crumbling infrastructure…we would not have to entertain ourselves with Snipe Hunts.

Perhaps it is a matter of imprecision on my part. I will grant you that there exist principled liberals and conservatives of serious mindset but they do not inhabit our professionalized politics. Professional Politics is like Professional Sports these days, a spectator phenomenon for a Spectator Culture. The Venue, it seems is getting a tad worn.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:31:37 +0000

Sabin’s response reminds of a short debate I had with Greg Wright, editor at HollywoodJesus.com, over a piece I wrote at Sam Karnick’s The American Culture blog. Wright’s assertion was, effectively, “Hollywood Left?!? No such thing. Never seen one. Never met one. Sure there are a few folks with different ideas [than Wright's], but ‘Hollywood Left’?!? Where do their meeting house? What are the dues? Who filed their by-laws? Hollywood Left … Ha … no such thing.”

Lawler is spot on if he describes this attitude toward certain ideologies as an “unserious supposition.”

Furthermore, if there are no such thing as conservatives, then how does Sabin assert the following:

“Interestingly, conservatives generally prefer money making endeavors. Hence, you will find many in politics today….and arms sells. Security of course is a major Conservative area of interest.”

So I guess one can find conservatives, after all. Maybe its just looking for liberals that would be the Snipe Hunt D.W. asserts.

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:30:25 +0000

Having purchased a copy of Garret Garrets “Ex America ” at the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and Burkes “Letter to a Noble Lord” at Powells in Portland …both liberal strongholds….and Russell Kirk in the Strand in New York as well as a fine copy of Burke’s Notes on the French Revolution at Shakespeare and Co. at Kilometre Zero in Paris, I can’t say I really give a rats ass what nit-picking, beret wearing voyeur might be interested in what I am reading at the point of purchase. We are all way too sensitive to retreating to the warm scent of the herd and maintaining tribal purity. To be honest, I did procure a copy of the Communist Manifesto while at Shakespeare & Co. just to have the little stamp on it from the font of Communist Confusion and Jacobin Idiotica as well as to give something to Burke to laugh at on the trip home but really now, everyone should read Marx in order to compare how close his observations are to the current sordid scene as well as to know thine enemy. Marx’s little tome sits next to my dogeared copy of “Guerilla Warfare” by Che Guevarra. If a few Conservatives had as much facility with a machete as Che did, we might not be watching the Republic descend into such torpid bathos.

Interestingly, conservatives generally prefer money making endeavors. Hence, you will find many in politics today….and arms sells. Security of course is a major Conservative area of emphasis. Wall Street is bi-partisan of course, hedging and shorting being so important there. After all, Shorting the Republic is Washington’s Chief Preoccupation today. In comparison, book stores would seem rather wanting for a conservative interested in returns on investment.

Actually , when somebody finds a conservative or a liberal, let me know, I’d like to see what they look like. I know Lawler considers this an unserious supposition but really now does anyone actually still think liberalism or conservatism is remotely relevant to the Beltway anymore? Octavian is sober in comparison. Caligula but a piker…his Horse a greater source of wisdom than the most respected partisan of either party today.

Cosmic Aeroplane in SLC is a fine place…a veritable temple to Ed Abbey. Atticus in New Haven, though limited in volumes has great food to boot and so is worth a trip…as is the little used bookstore up the street across from the Yale Rep.

Most musty antique stores have a few shelves that are always ready producers of cheap treasures…but antique stores are in decline as well now.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:37:09 +0000

Brother Wilson, I have tears in my eyes. Your above comment worth a year’s subscription to the secret monthly FPR magazine distributed to the coterie of true believers.
I would n’er visit a “locally” owned bookstore less it be populated with commie-dems both considering but never actually buying a book and flitting about the cash register in a Bob Dylan tee shirt and loudly offering to “help” customers.
I’ve found that leftists who’ve enough bread and backbone to start a bookstore are close enough to paleo-conservatism to at least engage in civil discourse if not launch a full-blown friendship…though I did make friends with the local owners, primarily because I helped launch the local enviro/wacko, anti-incinerator group and wore a tee shirt sent to me from the nations depicting “the first Homeland Security” fellas.
So James, olde palsy, your conservative creds are impeccable as far as I’m concerned and our right, obligation, and opportunity to engage in a “near occasion of sin” while participating in public intercourse with our librul friends shall not be restrained by miscreant rightest who demand homage to their own perverse gods of political correctness.
You go Bro!