The Place Books Go To Die

We don't get out much but last Friday we were very lucky….sorry, I mean blessed, what with being Christian and all (doesn't it feel sort of pretentious to say “blessed”, we're so blessed…maybe I mean awkward and not pretentious. Christians are so weird.) to leave the kids with a sitter and go out to dinner. We are always in time for the early bird special, all the normal young people arriving as we are leaving.

Anyway, we managed to stay out till nine o'clock, before collapsing in total exhaustion and going home, by wandering around Barnes and Noble for a bit and then me suckering Matt into shuffling disconsolately after me as I examined the handbag options yet again at TJ Maxx. There, finally, after so much long waiting, were two items of the right color and the right size and the right feel at a thrilling price. Matt shuddered and bought them both. “You don't understand,” I explained, “if you have the right shoes and the right purse you can face almost any eventuality. Whereas, even if your life is a unicorn butterlly rainbow of happiness, if the purse is wrong you just can't settle in to any kind of true comfort.”

“Mhmm” he said.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes! Barnes and Noble, which I read recently is struggling and that the whole publishing world is worried it will go the way of all other book stores, which is down into bookstore Sheol, never to rise again, and then where will we be? Publishers are wondering this. I worried about it as we walked up and down the very few number of book aisles and then landed in the new massive toy section. So few books, relatively, from long ago when we used to go and it used to really be all books. Barely any in the Christianish section, a very cut back history section, but lots and lots of specialty cook books, bright and shiny and expensive. Who can really afford all these shiny cookbooks? Or coffee table books? Or anything? That's the thing, we're not affording them, we're looking at them and then buying something else on Abebooks.

The true charm of Barnes and Noble, as it always was and hopefully always will be, is the bargain section and taking time to discover which books, thankfully, we don't have to be bothered to actually read. You might have been suffering from some guilt for not reading some of these books, but fret no longer, the books in this section are meant to squat intellectually on your shelf, giving all your visitors the impression of knowledge and wisdom. When someone settles down on your couch and glances up and says, startled, “have you really read all these books?” You demure gracefully and offer them a steaming coffee and ask them to tell you more about that trouble at work. Barnes and Noble is here, as it has been all these decades, as Americans read fewer and fewer books and watch more and more Rachel Ray, to help you. All these books that you Mercifully don't have to read are identified by fancy covers and cellophane, grouped together to astonish and amaze. And, blessed and lucky you, every now and then you discover a new book that you thought maybe you should have read, but there it is, it's in the section of books you don't have to read, and you are saved from a terrible ordeal.

First up, a book you may have heard of but, of course, everyone knows this is not for actual reading.

Thank goodness for that! But what else is there that you can escape from?

I would never have put these two books next to each other but what a gift! Honestly, who has time for either one…well, I can tell you which one I really don't have time for but I'll let you try and guess.

And here is a book we hear so much about lately, but, as you can see, you are spared from having to read it. Look at its beautiful cover!

These two I quibble with. They aren't that long and difficult. Maybe they were miss-shelved. Still, you know, some of the words in them are quite long. Maybe B&N knows what they're doing.

Color me happy! I'm so behind on my book pile, this is a relief all the way around.

Yes, and more Dickens. Someone should have told him to try to write fewer books. Still, it will look pretty on your shelf.

As we were finally leaving, after, mind you, sticking with our simple purchase of coffee and not being swayed by any of these dazzling covers, because, you know, I have them all, excepting Tom Brokaw and Steven Hawking, on my free books app where I'm not reading them either, we passed the cheesy journal section.

There was a journal of the sayings of Buddha and a variety of others that startled me not at all, but then I caught sight of this on the bottom shelf, wedged behind a misplaced sudoku book.

Oh Gosh. Really? I don't even know what to say. Thankfully, Jesus did say some stuff and, even though you don't have to read it, you can pay 5.96$ plus tax to have it scrolled along the bottoms and tops of some fakey parchmented pages. When you feel alone, you can gaze at this sad bearded Jesus and then get online, where no one will ever be alone again.

The place books go to die