Anon visits a bookstore

Comments

• Sonor@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The part a out randomly generated awards are so on point. Altough it could work with author names as well well. P. E. Nmyass

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• Quik@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Support your local independent bookstores (if you still have any)!

  I don’t know how common bookstores that are not part of large chains still are in other countries, here in Germany we have this thing called Buchpreisbindung (roughly translates to “fixed book prices”) which means bookstores actually have to compete only through presentation and their professional advice. Independent bookstores often have very knowledgeable personal that can give you great advice for free (in case of Germany) or with little extra cost compared to just ordering on Amazon/one of the corporate chains, e.g. at the bookstore around the corner the owner has been selling books for 50 years and has read basically everything ever published at this point.

  She has just recommended me Gentleman overboard which is a short, although nonetheless incredibly moving book about a gentleman… well, going over board.

  As for the titles/front page design/self-help books: I feel with OOP, but this seems to be what people care about/still feel they have the time to read. One actually very good (although slightly older) book from this rather modern category is The subtle art to not give a fuck.

  Tldr go out, search for and support independent bookstores!

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• ObsidianZed@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I feel like this is more specifically just your average Barnes and Noble. We have two small bookstores in town, one mostly selling used books and the other is mostly new, and they are the best. Soft instrumental music, a nice atmosphere, stands displaying local authors. They’re great.

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• Simulation6@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I always have a book or author in mind when I go to a book store. I have walked past the displays anon mentions, but they are ‘whats new’ advertising so they are flashy and change often.
  My complaint is that the types of books I like are given less and less shelf space every year. Romance and children’s books have mostly replaced science fiction and fantasy. I guess the stores know what sells and stock it.

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  • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Presumably science fiction and fantasy readers are more likely to use e-books and audio-books over paper books and more likely to use online stores over brick and mortar than some other demographics.

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    • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This. I rarely use physical stores for my SciFi books, and only ever go after comics and stuff like that in hard copy. “Normal” books are easier for me to ingest digitally, either via text or audio.

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    • straightjorkin@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think it would help sell physical media if Brandon Sanderson didn’t write 7 million words and sell a brick.

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    • Cmor@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I use audiobooks exclusively for my sci-fi and fantasy. There are so many great narrators in the genres that I can’t imagine going back to my made-up voices for characters.

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    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It is way harder to share e-books with friends. If you tend to pass books around, you still want paper.

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• Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Don’t forget the smut. So much smut.

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  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    i prefer my smut in the form of silly little games developed by silly little people on the internet who write silly little stories in their silly little games about silly little sexual adventures.

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• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Awards are meaningless. “NYT bestseller”, just as meaningless.

  Books are personal, like art, you probably will not actually like the vast majority of what you see. Even if you appreciate the effort that went into it you wouldn’t want it hanging in your home. Some of it is just hotel art. Mass produced for consumption, everyone sees it, but it has no staying power at all. A lot of books are crap, and I really like books.

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  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Around 2010, I worked for a company where one project was to increase the social profile of our company. We hired a marketing company to help us improve how our CTO, CEO, CFO, all the C-level folks looked to the public. Pretty much, throwing money to make these people get famous, so the company to could make money from all the news.

    A year later, CFO was on talk shows discussing his new book, which was a NYT best seller. The book was garbage and full of content scraped from a dozen other “thought leaders”.

    The thought leader circlejerk where hundreds of them have ghost writers write their shit, all of them tell the same 10 stories, all of them quote each other, all of them end up as NYT best sellers because some thought leader friend wanted to do the same so they inflate the sales.

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    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yep. The recycling of profundity.

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  • underwire212@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’d rather read a book that had “NYT Least Best Seller”

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    • AppleTea@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      that’s what Archive Of Our Own is for

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• napkin2020@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Life is too short to read shitty self help books that’s written by influencers(yuck) or some LLM shit books. Read the classics.

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  • shortrounddev@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You gotta find your favorite classics. I can’t read some old 19th century British lady writing about 18th century British teenagers getting married to their cousins, but I fuck with HP Lovecraft and HG Wells

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  • snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah, classics really don’t do it for me.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The only book I’ve read from an “influencer” is How to Win at Chess by Levy Rozman (@GothamChess), and mostly because it was one of two books on chess at my local library. He runs a chess training website (chessly), so he actually has some creds there.

    I also bought The Civilian Rights Handbook by John Lang (@AuditTheAudit) because I wanted to support him thought the book might be genuinely interesting to read and loan.

    Other than that, I mostly read from regular authors, either past or present.

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    • Klear@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Levy is the only youtuber where I can forgive clickbait because he goes so over the top with it.

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  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There are loads of great contemporary writers. Some of the best books I’ve ever read have come out in the past 4 years.

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    • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Any recommendations?

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  • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I swear Bad Lieutenant (the movie) is a modern adaptation of Musset’s Lorrenzaccio.

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• chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Lmao, Sarah J Maas catching strays.

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  • lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s a very Dutch sounding name ngl

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• gmtom@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Very on point, other than small indie or used book stores, the main part of every book store is filled with books with meaningless titles and art. And only likes to tell you about its awards and reviews.

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  • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My god, am I grateful for our local indie bookstore.

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• peridinium@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Ok but I would read ‘All The Fire That We Hold Tomorrow.’

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  • whostosay@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That book is so hot right now.

    Tap for spoiler

    Please take it away from me, it burns.

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    • Hackworth@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Image

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• Eyekaytee@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  does not sound like parallel, sounds like modern internet/reality has infected bookstores. It just needs books created by AI on influencers and it’ll be complete

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• wise_pancake@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I just learned the book I’m reading has a glow in the dark cover

  I’m too early on in the book to know what that means

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• vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Theres a local used bookstore which is only vaguely organized, smells of decades if not centuries old paper, the politics section is just piles of conservative nonsense and two rows of well organized works by economic philosophers, and theres a cobweb covered copy of Dianetics on top of the Sci-fi shelf. It is truly cozy and glorious.

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  • GraniteM@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There are always copies of The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. There are always copies of The Two Towers or Return of the King, but frequently no copies of The Fellowship of the Ring. There are always copies of the Chronicles of Narnia books, but never an entire set from the same printing. The staff will always have an author that they will defend their excellent writing while acknowledging that they were horrible human beings, e. g. H. P. Lovecraft, Ernest Hemingway, and recently we get to add Neil Gaiman. If you’re very lucky, someone came in and sold a first autographed edition that’s worth $100+ but the buyer screwed the pooch and priced it at $10.

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• Nosavingthrow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  “Warhammer 40k novels, thoe most superb prose. Only the finest for the Gentlemen. Ah yes, ‘adult manga’ of course. 1984? Perfection. Of course, I haven’t read it. I just need a copy to throw at minorities. It is truly an excellent work.”

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• falcunculus@jlai.lu ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This greentext is literally just right-wingers convincing each other their already-held stereotypes are true.

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  • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Wait, isn’t enshittificaion a left-wing idea?

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    • Sergio@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think enshittification is a universally-acknowledged truth. The only difference of opinion is whether it’s a good thing or not.

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    • falcunculus@jlai.lu ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The way I read it, this post complains about “wokization” more than enshittification.

      Else why would it point out “African or Indian last names”, reviews using the word “brave”, or “books about Trump gathering dust”? Those are all right-wing memes.

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• straightjorkin@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Don’t forget about the stand with a sign that says “Booktok made me read it” and it’s the same 3 books repeated ad infinitum and despite all being first editions they all have sprayed edges.

  I hate what book tok has done to the book world.

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• blind3rdeye@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Amusing greentext - but doesn’t match the bookshops that I was in recently. There are some really good bookshops.

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• endeavor@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Here bookstores have become mostly selling useless trinkets nobody needs, music and games.

  Thank chist I have dropped book reading as a hobby otherwise I’d be pretty upset.

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• gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  PeoPLe SHouLd ReAd MoRe BoOkS

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  • antiquity2038@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah, people should. Don’t make it sound like every book on the market currently is just bullshit self-help books. Go buy a copy of any novel of George Orwell/Stefan Zweig/Franz Kafka, or, The Handmaid’s Tale, Of Mice and Men, Fahrenheit 451, etc etc etc…

    There are so many great world classics on the market that you can probably buy for dirt cheap if you live in the west.

    Or better yet, go on Standard E-books and browse a huge, copyright-free collection of old books, of the writers being Shakespeare, Nietzche, Homer, Oscar Wilde and much, much more.

    Don’t let a post from fucking 4chan of all places to dissuade you from reading.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Well, i was already holding my opinion before this 4chan post; this just gave me opportunity to formulate it.

      However, it is important to note that many people say “people should read more books” without in any way, implicit or explicit specifying which books to read.

      There are a lot of people saying “they’re gonna educate themselves through youtube”, but in the end, not all youtube videos that seem to have good content, actually have good content. There’s a lot of videos containing pseudo-clever thoughts, that lead people to believe they have learned something, while actually, they haven’t. And the people often even pay/donate for it. That is my consideration.

      It is the same with books: By reading “books”, people are often caught in reading not-actually-all-that-great books, like all (or most of) the modern stuff, and that does not help anyone.

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  • deathbird@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Then the books are like: 👆

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• flying_sheep@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Cue “am I out of touch” meme.

  OP, it’s OK to no longer be up-to-date with the literature scene.

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  • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Is TikTok popular because it’s actually good? No, it is the children who are wrong.

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• underwire212@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Ya don’t have to read those books, y’know.

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• MBM@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  vaguely African or Indian last names

  Oh right, 4chan

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• Fizz@lemmy.nz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This is how our retail bookstores are except half the items in the shop aren’t even books.

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