The Queen Of The World got me a Barnes & Noble gift card, so we went out to an actual bricks-and-mortar bookstore (do they really have those? As it turns out, yes they do).
It was a blast, and a bit of a blast from the past. The whole Borepatch clan would go out Christmas shopping Back In The Day, and we'd spend an inordinate amount of time in bookstores. TQOTW and I were in the bookstore for a couple of hours. I'd forgotten just how much better book shopping at a bookstore is, as opposed to online.
Sure, online lets you get that book you already know about instantly, no fus and no muss. But there's no good way to browse. Basically, online handles the known knowns, but in the store is unbeatable for unknown unknowns.
For example, I didn't know that I wanted this until I was browsing: Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams. (Williams was Glenn's wingman in the Korean War, flying combat sorties)
I also didn't know that I needed Barry Strauss' Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors From Augustus To Constantine. I had listened to Robin Pearson interview Prof. Strauss on The History Of Byzantium podcast (you can listen at the link; recommended), and lo and behold here was the book. Done and done.
Likewise with Tom Holland's new book Pax: War And Peace In Rome's Golden Age. Like with Strauss, I had heard Robin interview Tom Holland on the same podcast.
I had wanted Max Miller's new cookbook, Tasting History. We've seen Miller's videos here before (for example, Trader Vic's original Mai Tai). Miller recreates recipes from the past, going all the way back to ancient Babylon (!). I think the first of his videos I posted was about feeding the Roman Army. He is entertaining and the recipes looked really interesting and now that there is a cookbook of the recipes I thought I'd get it. We'll see if TQOTW lets me make any of these in her kitchen.
All in all, podcasters were well represented at the bookstore. Both of Mike Duncan's books were there. Already had both, but was happy to see that he's currently in stock.
So it was a great afternoon with The Queen Of The World (who also scored some history books - she's not just a pretty face, she's also wicked smart). Bricks and mortar bookstores for the win.
2 comments:
My daughter has always been a voracious reader and she gets B&N gift cards all of the time.
There was a major B&N in our area that is closing and "everything" was 75% off.
Unfortunately, wife and daughter couldn't get out there.
Store closes at 9 pm and they had to shut the doors at 6pm !!!!
Our local B&N closed last year, but I hadn't frequented it for two reasons, expense and lack of space for any more physical books in the house. It used to be the place to find offbeat periodicals with nuggets of truth before the internet was fully established.
I used to browse the local used book chain stacks, but it's hard to find quality at a decent value since they can scan and compare with Amazon to optimize their gains in real time.
At least you aren't fighting with the independent arbitragers with their smart phones just to look at the books. Yeah, it was a thing for a year or so . I saw a big fight break out in the Dallas Half Price Books when one of these enterprising individuals got super annoying to other customers and store employees.
I have managed to get huge number of technical books online either gratis/cheap through authors or sites like Humble Bundle. PDF's work well on computers and tablets, somewhat less on smart phones. I need a few lifetimes to explore all of these books.
Classics are available through Project Gutenberg. You can download the whole archive and extract what format/font you want at a later date.
And there is the public library. But many libraries follow national guidelines and such, so many books may be a wokeningly homogenized waste of space. But it's easier to scan the inventory from their website than walk through the stacks. Also you can checkout films and music without committing any funds. (Could store a copy on your media server, but that would be wrong...)
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