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05/13/2006: "Freedom to Read"

I read in the paper a couple of days ago that Cody’s Books, a longtime fixture of Berkeley, will soon be closing. On the heels of that revelation came a chance run-in with a bookseller friend of mine from Oakdale, who tells me that he closed his open store and now does business strictly online. These twin revelations fill me with dread.

The freedom—to say nothing of the ability—to read is one of the most fundamental powers of humanity. It is nothing less than the ability to transfer information, and is one of the oldest forms of communication. But we, in this country, and in this decade, are rapidly surrendering this freedom to the hands of a few.

Independent bookstores are closing at an alarming rate. In addition to Cody’s closure, San Francisco’s Clean Well-lighted Place for Books has announced the closure of its Van Ness street store. Why is this happening? Simple: book monopolies exist, and they’re consolidating their positions quickly.

Do you know how many stores Barnes & Noble has in the United States? More than 400! Borders has more than 150! With these multiple outlets comes commensurate advertising, and fierce competition. Throw in big staffs and lots of little extras like cappuccino and biscotti, and independent stores just don’t have a chance. Used bookstores also have a hard time fighting for customers, as people become accustomed to making the mental connection of, for example, “Books? Oh, Borders.” This has many other effects besides forcing the closure of independent bookshops.

For one thing, it pushes used bookstores into the role of a supplier. Take the case of my friend Jake (not his real name), who had a used bookstore on the Peninsula for seventeen years. Faced with diminishing customers, Jake closed his store, sold his San Mateo home, and moved into the central valley where he set up shop as an online-only business. While he still has some online customers, his work consists largely of supplying books to Amazon and B&N clients. He continues in this role today.

Yes, his costs are lower, but the customer interaction is lost. There is no exchange of reading ideas, no suggestions of similar books, no talk of the other works by the same author. All the little joys that make a bookshop a special place fall by the wayside of a single-book transaction, and perhaps two emails.

A friend of mine recently remarked, “People just don’t like going out more than they have to. It’s easier to get the books delivered to your home.” Perhaps. I already deliver books to home-bound people and customers who don’t have time to pick up their purchases. But at the same time there’s a growing sense of surprise from online shoppers about what’s available nearby. For example I had an online customer recently who bought a book of mine, and paid through Paypal. But his shipping address was right here in my town, and only five blocks away. When informed of this, the customer picked up his purchase, glanced around the shop and remarked, “I didn’t know this business was here in town.” Yes, for thirteen years.

This is one of the dangers inherent in becoming a virtual society. We will become a nation of shut-ins, largely ignorant of our surroundings. We may venture outside, but only on prescribed paths: work, store, bank, and eventually not even to those places, as fuel costs rise, and telecommuting becomes more prevalent. But even this danger pales beside the larger one: the loss of the freedom to read.

Three-quarters of the book business in the United States is controlled by three chain-stores. That also means that their book-buyers make the determination of what can sell; i.e., if the buyer doesn’t like the book in question he won’t buy it, and the publisher won’t publish something he can’t sell. This gives the book buyers of the chains the extraordinary power to choose what will be published and what won’t. A determination is being made on the basis of dollars and cents, not on that of literary merit. Added to which, there’s no guarantee that the buyer is even a reader—after all, he’s more concerned with the bottom line than whether the books are any good.

In effect, what’s happening is a sort of de facto censorship. If a plot slows even once, it may find itself rejected out of hand by a non-reading book buyer. Nor is there any guarantee that the books the publishers choose will be of good quality. Author Jerzy Kosinski once conducted an experiment in the difficulties of new writers to get published: eight years after it won the National Book Award, he allowed another writer to change the title of his novel "Steps" and market it as his own. Thirteen agents and fourteen publishers, including the outfit that had originally bought it, soundly rejected the manuscript while simultaneously failing to recognize it for what it was. This experiment has been conducted several times, always with the same result.

We may soon find ourselves hip deep in techno-thrillers, while literary wonders like Robert Benchley, Jerzy Kosinski, Dorothy Parker, and Ambrose Bierce are denied printing or reprinting and consigned to a dwindling number of used bookshops. On-Demand publishers are already springing up, taking orders for out-of-print books which modern presses won’t touch.

Nor can we depend on the chains for the same kind of individual courage that independents have shown. During the Salman Rushdie controversy, many chain stores refused to carry his infamous book, The Satanic Verses, for fear of offending clientele. When author Frank McCourt was denied a publishing contract because book buyers felt his book, Angela’s Ashes (later awarded the Pulitzer Prize), was unviable, only independent bookshops in his native Brooklyn would sell it.

Books, bookstores, and the freedom to read is in a state of siege right now. But 99% of the country is blissfully unaware of that fact.

Is there a solution? I don’t know. One thing is certain: the public must become aware of what’s happening. Media coverage of bookstore closures has thus far been in the nature of a one-time only basis; no connection has been made that this is a part of a widespread pattern! Either no one has noticed, or no one wants to notice. But ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.

Author Christopher Morley wrote that ideas are more explosive than gunpowder. “You can destroy a building with a bomb, but you can blow up a nation with a book. It just takes a little longer.” True enough. But if there’s nowhere to buy the book, much less anyone who’s willing to publish it, then there’s a problem.

The late writer and journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote, “No one is stealing our freedoms, we’re dealing them away.” The freedom to read is probably the most fundamental unwritten right of any human being. Do we really want to leave that freedom in the hands of those whose sole concern is making money?