struggling to make sense of the political process.

I was reading in the April issue of the New Yorker an article by Ken Auletta about the publishing industry and I was reminded of my great affinity for book stores of old. (You might have seen them in old movies. The ones with the smell of old paper and staff w/o uniform and non-florescence lighting.) The book store was not so much for finding what you already knew you wanted, but a space for finding that desire. Sometimes the store had little note-card reviews by staff along the shelves (seemingly written more by a jr. editor than a low level retail worker) and if not there was someone who was breathlessly excited to suggesting a book for you.

One of the immeasurable joys I find in reading is that intense desire to tell the world about my recently found treasure. And if I can’t often convince my contemporaries that they will actually die if they don’t read Vollmann or Pirsig, watching others provides some relief. Seeing a blatheringly excited book store worker suggest a book seems more like a gift giving ceremony than a sale; and restores to me a belief that socioeconomic interaction can be beautiful.

I don’t know how small bookstores can possibly survive. It may be inevitable that they do not. But I do believe, right down in my marrow, that as this kind of social space leaves, it will take with it a kind of beauty already in short supply.

In the time that is left go and spend some time with the indy booksellers we have left in Phoenix.

*I haven’t included in this map:   chain retailers, comic book stores, religious or spiritually focused book shops or places whose primary business is not books.

** I suspect that B. Dalton Booksellers Bookstar/Town & Country is not really an independent book store, but merely desires to be seen as one. I have no evidence for this except that its (owner verified) Google listing gives its website as www.barnesandnobel.com