Bookshops and…Bargains?

I stumbled into a used bookstore yesterday with 75% off signs in the windows and for a moment just stared at the sheer number of books this man had to sell before the end of the month. Why by the end of the month? The shop is closing. Going out of business.
It was the first time I’d been to that shop. The smell was overwhelming. Emanating from the seemingly endless shelves was a smell so rich with paper and ink and history that it was like stepping into an isolated moment in time. Nothing from my life followed me there, just my love of books and a peculiar ache in my heart that this was disappearing. The store was infused with a peculiar decay. Each book I touched had a life before it was placed on that shelf, each book began its journey with a few words that exploded into pages of syntax and ideas and stories. There were newer books, printed within the past ten years, the pages still crisp. There were old books, with signs “handle with care”, the pages yellowed and thinning with the slow progression of time. Leather-bound, paperback, hardcover, chapbook…they were all there, resting in a static camaraderie on old shelves that towered above my head. Then there were stacks. Stacks on the floor, stacks on chairs and stools, stacks on the stairs…books had overtaken this small shop, upstairs and downstairs, windowsills, at the counter. At first you don’t notice the man sitting behind the counter, surrounded by stacks of literature and knowledge and stories and history that he’s made his life. Downtrodden, bitter, even, to lose his life’s work, a somber devastation etched onto his face.

I spent two hours in this bookstore, staring at titles and barely understanding them. When I placed my stack of books on the counter, he barely spoke to me. Just began ringing in the sale and then told me my total. There was something resigned and angry in his demeanor. I handed him my card, and after he placed it in the chip reader and the machine took my theoretical money he tossed the card on the counter. He tossed a pen down next to it so I could sign my receipt. The customer service worker in me from two years at a large chain bookstore was chagrined, but part of me thought, what does it matter? His store is dying. His professional life is dying. It doesn’t matter if his customers return because soon there will be nothing to return to. I walked out into the sunny day with the dusty air of the bookshop still lingering in my hair and clinging to my back as I walked down the street. My life is unchanged by this change. But is it? I bought my books for a bargain, at the price of losing a bookstore. Was it really a bargain?