Neighborhood Bookshops: Live with More Books Than You Can Read

by John Kremer on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 | Comments Off

John Maynard Keynes

The following is a comment from economist John Maynard Keynes:

The reader should live with more books than he reads, with a penumbra of unread pages, of which he knows the general character and content, fluttering round him. This is the purpose of libraries….

It is also the purpose of good bookshops, both new and secondhand, of which there are still some, and would that there were more. A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye.

To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon’s entertainment. Feel no shyness or compunction in taking it. Bookshops exist to provide it; and the booksellers welcome it, knowing how it will end.

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Top 700 Independent Bookstores Data Files — This list started out as 500, then 600, then 700, and now over 750 top general interest bookstores. It includes names of the book buyers and event coordinators, address, phone, fax, email, website, and other information about each bookstore.

You will be able to download six different formats (your choice of one or all) as well as an information sheet to let you know what is contained in the various data files. Data file download, $40.00. If you find any errors in any listing, we guarantee to hunt down the error and correct it for you immediately.