I loved being a bookseller. I learned to read at 2. I learned everything about books, production, design, the logistics of retail and publication. I am genuinely a bibliophile.
There's so few bookstores today. A large portion of the population is functionally illiterate. A new dark age looms.
It feels like it. But I teach Hs ELA and kids, especially girls, are getting really into reading right now. I rarely see a girl at this school (poor school) without a book on hand.(not spicy)
The boys tho, you'd think I was asking them to perform brain surgery just to read a sentence.
I remember the moment I discovered that the symbols meant sounds, and those sounds formed words. It was like a light turned on and I started to read everything I could get my hands on. In two years I had read everything in the house.
My mom always brought home books for me. Reading was my escape.
(Tangent sry) There isn't enough evidence for it to mean much of anything, but I've noticed a growing dependency on immediate gratification with boys/men over the past decade or so; it very much speaks to the growing educational divide, with about 1/2 of women and 1/3rd of men having college degrees
I know everyone calls me a boomer when I say this, but I blame video games and social media for it; video games and the immediate dopamine horrendously develop delusions of grandeur for people raised heavily on them; Social media gave them a place for those ideas and delusions to be heard.
I don't know, it's hard not to feel slighted when young men and podcasts were the reason Trump got re-elected, not to feel slighted when I've heard of so many excelling women having to clean up after guys who couldn't log off, not to feel slighted when those delusional manbabies take our rights
I was just joking about this the other day even though it's not really that funny. About how I had to go to my local indie bookseller, Barnes & Noble, to get my book.
Checking in from Portland where I sometimes feel bad for going to the "big corporate book store" (actually the independent legend powells) instead of smaller indie stores
B&N is still fucking with community colleges. They run the college bookstores. They have textbook opt-out policies that make it impossible for the students to opt out. And it’s a high profit spot for them, obviously.
Borders used to feel like a library or community center while BN felt more like a pretentious coffee shop w/ books.
I was part of a non-profit and Borders let us use one of their tables for our meetings.
I was just thinking that the other day. I went to my local B&N and it was packed and I was so happy just to see people physically shopping retail I forgot about how back in the day we made a whole movie with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks about what dicks Barnes and Noble were
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There's so few bookstores today. A large portion of the population is functionally illiterate. A new dark age looms.
The boys tho, you'd think I was asking them to perform brain surgery just to read a sentence.
My mom always brought home books for me. Reading was my escape.
They feel impotent because they are no longer seen as a necessity for many women. So they want to return to the fifties when we didn't have a choice.
I was part of a non-profit and Borders let us use one of their tables for our meetings.