>>25330860
Every time I go to a bookstore they don't have the book I want.

>>25330860
Like month ago (haven't entered one for years before that). Took me like 5 minutes to find foreign fiction section (not in american or britain), which was in the furthest corner possible far from eyes of the customers. Most of it was junk like in pic related, pop science shit, self-help trash, trashy crime books and those porn books read by women. Interestingly there were no customers, but two white female employees wasting their time on smartphones - how is it profitable to employ them?

>>25330876
>two white female employees wasting their time on smartphones
What were their piercings, hair dye , and weight/BMI ?

>>25330860
>Would you rather have unlimited accessories but no books, or books, unlimited books, but no books?

File: images (58).jpg (20 KB, 400x224)

20 KB JPG

>>25330860
Every day.
>What is your stance on the current state of chain book purveyors?
10/10 shorties browsing the litfic and poetry section.
Single mothers browsing the Bestsellers section.
Fat 30 years old cows browsing the romance section.
Fat 50 years old men browsing the photography section.
Anorexic 50 years old women browsing the thriller and the feminist section.
20 years old trannies (and 20 years old liberal men) browsing the manga section, who spend all their time near the highbrow stuff (Junji Ito, Inio Asano, etc.) and then buy shonen.
Nuns browsing the religion section.
Hippie couples (always one 2m tall scrawny guy with a very slim beard and a short woman with dreadlocks) browsing the esoteric section.
Tourist wives dragging their bored tourist husbands to check the city guides.
30 years old gymrats going to the bookstore just to shit on Zyzek and glazing Fusaro.
Extremely performative commie girls with massive hats asking where the political literature section is.
Old authors arriving 5 hours before their book signing starts, they start talking to the staff, which can't help the commie girls (but these bitches don't move, they wait beside the staff until they finish talking) so you end up with a massive traffic jam in the middle of the store.
Young authors arriving 2 hours late for their signing event, but at least they have 1000 different PR gays who arrive 5 hours late and they stand in the middle of the room too.
Indian teenagers sleeping on the couches that are meant for perusing the books, near the aforementioned nuns.
Alcoholic men arguing with the staff because they haven't gotten their copy of the classic they ordered and then settling near the political section reading a book on Putin.
French women spitting 900 words per minute about getting their ticket wrong and now they don't know if they'll ever return to France.
Teenagers walking around talking about school and how much they hate real women (or men). They never buy any thing, they never stop near anything, they just walk around.

>>25330896
>5 hours late
early* with the fucking jurnos.

>>25330896
>fat 50 year old men browsing the photography section
That'll be me soon

barnes and noble a couple months ago they had a good selection

like a year or two ago
the manga section is growing larger and larger every single time I went into it, I don't really blame people for that, I also would rather "read" funny pictures with cute 2d women than whatever is the current YA bestseller

>>25330860
Four years ago
It was mostly manga and random toys and bullshit
Local used bookstores still have kino stuff, although by volume it's 80% crappy romance.

there are chain bookstores, they are pretty fucking large, and people actually go there, you brits don't know how good you have it

>>25330864
And if they do it’s the worst cover art option anyway

>>25330860
I go to B&N all the time and they typically have something that interests me because I live in a cultured city and venture past the front display tables.

>>25330860
Seven years ago. I had excess money to spend on some dumb fancy reprint of Joyce or whatever and thought it‘d be a good chance to hit on girls while browsing. I had the worst luck with their looking like adults from behind then when I tried to make smalltalk they turned out to be 14.

>>25330860
A few years ago and it’s all YA. Amazon is way better.

>>25330860
Yesterday. Chain bookstores are fine.

>>25330860
The're extremely light on anything ancient world which may be politically motivated but its been that way for years. I know if I want to buy a copy of Xenophons anabasis that I'll never read anyways I'm gonna have to get it on amazon. Amazon is cheaper anyways. I usually go into Barnes and Noble a few times a year especially around Christmas cause its such a nice vibe I've enjoyed it all my life. Walking around with starbucks that I only ever get when I go to a B&N.
>>25330896 Is accurate in describing how its filled with expectable types of people and thats part of the joy, its a place that brings about all walks of life and its nice. I have a rule for myself though that I'm not allowed to buy any books until I've finished all the books I've bought from them specifically. I'm nearly there.

>>25330860
I've been to the barnes and noble that's at the big shopping center near my house (along with target, best buy, etc) a few times
The selection is bad compared to the rare large non-chain bookstore out there, but getting a coffee and wandering around is still comfy

>>25330860
I don't know. A decade? There's a smallish bookstore near me that looks like a chain, but isn't, I don't think. I usually aren't interested in buying anything because I just rip what I want to read off AA. There's some art books I always want but they're too expensive. Last time I was there they had some really good books on sale, so I got The Stepford Wives and The Soft Machine for 3,50€ each. Nice.

>>25330876
>no customers, but two white female employees wasting their time on smartphones - how is it profitable to employ them?
what are they supposed to do when there are no customers?

>>25330860
Last time I went into a chain bookstore my ex walked in shortly after. It turned out that she had started working there and she stayed in line of sight of the entrance for her whole shift. Thankfully she was only working 5 hours (no break though, otherwise I could have left earlier) so after she clocked out I was able to make my exit. But I had to pretend to look for books for five hours without being seen by my ex

>>25330896
What about people buying historical non ficition & biographies?

>>25331319
...what? Why didn't you just leave?

>>25331319
Kinda cringe dude. Did you look like a reddit mod or something? Did you cheat on her?
Awkwardly exchanging glances with your ex while you check out is one of those things you just gotta do sometimes.

>>25330860
the chains are too hyperfocused on whats the latest pop culture and such, second hand places are where its at for decent finds

File: booktok(82).webm (2.93 MB, 540x960)

2.93 MB WEBM

>>25330860
i don't want to be labeled a creep

>>25331264
the crossings?

I don't understand why people go to a bookstore if library is free

>>25331358
>goes to a book store to make a tiktok video
>calls other people performative
nobody even approaches her because she's a fat bitch

>>25331375
This video is just ragebait

>>25331366
homeless people have access to touching those books no thank you enjoy

File: IMG_8580.jpg (411 KB, 1113x1381)

411 KB JPG

>>25330860
Yesterday actually. Snapped this to show a friend the state of things. It’s been like 6 months since my other visit.

I read some brand new books but it tends to be as an audiobook because I can’t be arsed to own a physical copy. Otherwise it’s older books and classics and those I find cheaper and better online or buying fine press. My shitty paperback era is pretty much done I think. Maybe once or twice a year when I’m at the airport kiosk and need something for the flight.

I've preorderd the new Del Rey edition of Mona Lisa Overdrive because the Voyager edition has dogshit printing and I don't like the Gollancz Cover. Paid 15€ with 7% tax included for an imported $20 book so it was alright I guess.
Still would've preferred a decent 80s/90s trade paperback but they don't exist sadly.
Other than that I buy almost exclusively second hand, partly because I specifically want older editions.

>>25331390
lmao had to do a double take with that "dungeons anarchist cookbook" isnt the original Anarchist cookbook heavily outdated/discredited by its writer?

>>25331371
It's one of the last "third places" that are viable.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P8X9ofPzte0
>>25331324
No one buys them. Barely even approached. The closest I saw someone check that section was one girl, probably autistic, who kept putting the "problematic" literature (mein kampf, luther's on the jews, jovial, etc.) behind other books.
I have a hunch that all the people who complain here about not finding the books they want would be the ones to infest those sections, but I see none.
>>25331390
>Whoa, look dude! The books similar to genre slop books are also genre slop! It's sooo over!

>>25330896
What about based guys who exclusively browse the classics section, do they exist?

>>25331458
>but I see none.
I've been buying books from eBay or my local used bookstores for basically ever. Maybe I'll go into a big one and buy something if they have actual non slop but honestly I'm not sure if it's worth it given that I'm funding the industry that gave us morning glory milking farm and twilight.

Actually: Are there any small niche publishers around that aren't just vehicles of either left or right wing politics and produce quality books?

>>25331458
>The books similar to genre slop books are also genre slop!
If you call it genre slop and can't make the mental connection that this is what's being promoted I'm not sure you're intelligent enough to read anything other than genre slop.

>>25330864
Kamasutra?

>>25331358
I'm sure that they aren't curious about the camera.

File: IMG_20260609_185056.png (1.52 MB, 1000x750)

1.52 MB PNG

>>25331460
The commie girls check the greeks from time to time (probably because they are theatre kids) while the litfic baddies read anything more recent.
This is because here in Italy we don't really have a distinction for classics vs litfics. In the US "litfics" only means "contemporary literature that isn't genre fiction", while here in Italy we describe it as "modern classics".
So you'll find Lord of The Rings in the same section as GRRM, while you'll find Steinbeck in the same section as Han Kang. R.F. Kuang is in three separate sections (Poppy war in YA, Katabasis in fantasy and Yellowface in fiction).
I don't see men checking that section.
They are all going to non fiction stuff or they order their books online and then go to the bookstore to pick up what they ordered.

>>25331479
>Why, when I ask for genre slop, they recommend me genre slop???
Do you also expect them to recommend you James Joyce instead of children books whenever you ask them for something similar to Dr. Seuss? Fucking retard.

>>25331524
> litfic baddies
FYI no one except for profoundly retarded, trashy third worlders and those pandering to them talks like this. If you said that around the average English speaking Westerner they'd be repulsed.

>>25331566
Why are you mad though?

File: ab6761610000e5eb0386e394b(...).jpg (83 KB, 538x640)

83 KB JPG

>>25331566
>FYI no one except for profoundly retarded, trashy third worlders and those pandering to them talks like this
Yes, I speak like the white midwestern emo rappers from whom I learned English.
>If you said that around the average English speaking Westerner they'd be repulsed.
Good. Imagine pandering to normalfags.
And, considering that there is no term of endearment for "beautiful woman" in use among them (even "beautiful woman" sounds indian), I have no other choice than to use those terms.
Calling them "foids" feels really fucking gay too.

>>25331609
That sounds infinitely more Indian than "beautiful women". We, anglo saxons*, simply don't have verbal constructs for such casual flirtation as we value the virtue of our women, who are all individually beautiful beyond measure in any case.


*I'm half Mexican DOE

>>25330860
There are some decent second hand bookshops in my city. The last one I went into I bought an old Yeats Selected Poetry book, the bloke in there asked if I had any cash and I said no, he implied he would be basically making a loss on the book but I paid the £2 by card. Who the fuck carries cash on them these days?

>>25331647
>the current obsession with pajeets is so bad the amerimutt can't recognize a fellow dego

>>25331371
I like owning books. Especially because they're starting to edit new editions. I want to buy an immutable physical copy to give to my kids.

>>25331458
>>25331467
>I have a hunch that all the people who complain here about not finding the books they want would be the ones to infest those sections, but I see none.
<blogpost>
Ok, I went into my local B&N. If by chance any of you saw an immensely fat bald guy in a green shirt that was me. I'm kind of shocked, they had Shelby Foote's history of the civil war and some other chud coded nonfiction I would have thought verboten. But anything genuinely interesting was, no kidding, less than 2% of what was there. History was overwhelmed by MUH TRUMP and MUH NAZI low quality stuff (with some standouts) and the Christianity section—bigger and more diverse than I expected—was mostly extreme slop. The shelves for manga and new age spirituality were, individually, larger than all the history shelves combined. I couldn't find a dedicated classics section which surprised me more than it should have.

The clientele was mostly 50+ year old men, although I wasn't paying attention and didn't go into the cafe. Me, two chubby white "alt" girls, and two flamboyantly homosexual Mexican zoomers were the only people there under 35 that I noticed.

I picked up Augustine's Confessions since I've somehow never read it and to, I guess, send a tiny signal against slopification.

Despite the pleasant surprises I probably won't be back, the ratio of gem to coal was overall a bit lower than the used book shop I usually go to.

</blogpost>

>>25330860
Last time I went into a barnes and noble, I remarked to a friend bemusedly about how it's always strange that the witchy occult books are always placed right next to the Bibles and a massive, wild, neon-haired bull dyke seemingly materialized out of thin air behind some shelves to come debate me (quite loudly) about how nuns are actually awful fucking psychopaths ackchually.

I bought a book about the history of sharks and we left.

>>25331670
Kek that reminds me, half the psychology section was "witchy" shit for some reason.
t. >>25331668

I go to Barnes and Noble almost twice a month. Sad I know, but I just go there if I wanted to waste time and to get out of my home.
It's the same thing almost evertime I went there.
>lots of women browsing the romance section as usual
>tons of couples who don't even bother to browse the books and instead just walk around
>zoomers, goths, fat nerds, and e-girl esque browse the manga section and talking really loudly about the most normalfag shit they like to "read"
>old people mostly just go to the cafe in there
>very few people actually look inside the books and read them
>almost all the other sections are empty or have few people browse them
Almost everytime I went there, this was pretty much it.
There's also no point on buying shit here because Amazon usually has the books they have on sale.
Maybe local bookstores would be better.

Went to a used bookstore on Penn campus. Got some books I was looking for (Desert Solitaire, Rabbit Redux and John Cheever’s Collected Stories). They didn’t have one book I was looking for
(Young Hearts Crying by Richard Yates. But they did have a couple other Richard Yates books on the shelf.). I was pleased with the selection and prices.

I've become the person I swore I'd never be. I prefer ebooks and get mad when only physical copies of a book are available to purchase. I used to be the complete opposite.

I'd give you the excuse that "ebooks are typically cheaper" but that's not even true nowadays in a lot of cases.

I just shoplift Mtg boosters and scalp the good rares.

>>25331722
why do you prefer ebooks

>>25331743
Generally cheaper (in a lot of cases) ease of access, can't deteriorate, can have hundreds of books all in one place etc.

File: 1755624726082959.png (316 KB, 1384x814)

316 KB PNG

>>25331743
NTA, but I can read everything in a large, sans-serif font.

>>25331747
>can't deteriorate, can have hundreds of books all in one place etc.
Not unless a solar flare has anything say about that digital storage...

>>25331747
> can't deteriorate
Let me teach you about the basics of digital storage. One copy is no copy. Two copies on the same site is one copy.

>>25331768
>>25331776
You seem upset

>>25331747
Digital storage is only reliably safe for around ten years. You can get lucky but paper is undeniably superior for longevity.

>>25331790
Dumb bitch.

>>25331792
Did you even finish college

>>25331795
Never went, commie faggot.

>>25331795
Yes I met your mom there

>>25330860
Last visit: last Xmas shopping season.

I don't know how they stay in business.

>>25331810
By selling books and coffee and pastries and movies and tv shows and music?

>>25330860
Two years ago when there was a sale.
No price tags on sight and when I asked for some books I was interested in they were way cheaper in amazog. I'm surprised normalfags are willing to pay so much for books when they aren't a bare necessity.

I just can't do it. Walking into B&N knowing I'm overpaying for something I can get much cheaper online doesn't sit right with me. Feels performative too.

>>25331670
>I bought a book about the history of sharks and we left.
I want to know about this book anon.

>>25331800
>>25331801
Somebody's cranky

>>25331911
The Secret History of Sharks by John Long.

>>25331918
Sorry your gender studies degree never got you anywhere anon.

>>25331920
What's The Secret History of Skanks by Donna Tart like tho?

>>25331940
Dunno nigguh. I can tell you about Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 by Michael Capuzzo though.

>>25331922
My computer playtime degree got me 149k a year achually

>>25331951
>149k
Starvation wages, lmao.

Extremely feminine. It was half YA fiction, a quarter Romance with AI generated covers and a quarter everything else (which included pop toys and puzzle gadgets for some reason). Staffed by nerdy looking midwit women.

>>25331358
if this was a real problem you had (which it isnt) it would be an easy problem to solve. any woman who would post this is only buying slop fiction, dont go to those sections.

>>25331951
>oh yeah? oh yeah? well here's how much money I make so there!
Why do tech fucks do this? Whenever they get flustered or upset they stamp their foot and screech that they have more money than you so they win. Don't they know that the only people who find that kind of petulant whine-brag impressive instead of unbearably cringe are other tech fucks? You can see this on the tech portion of shitter all the time, screenshots of everyone trying to one-up each other by humblebragging about tc on first dates, people wink-wink nudge-nudging about stock options, etc. They really don't know how they sound to other people, do they?

I go to B&N once every week to just look at the books, sometimes buy one. it's a decently sized store and one of the few good book stores in miles. Most other small ones are christian or new age shit.

>>25331872
I don't go into these kinds of places, but my understanding is that they specialise in new (in both the sense of unused and recently published) books. Surely the prices in that case are quite close to the MSRP wherever you get them from?

>>25332207
Tech workers in the 21st century are the obnoxious nouveaux rich class that everyone else rolls their eyes at and dissociates from, best represented by financiers in the 19/20th centuries or merchants in times prior to that

>>25331782
I'm relaying basic facts about storage, and I'm not upset about it, it's just the tedium of watching normie retards make the same mistakes over and over and then come crying to someone technically competent because their lifetime of data they trusted to one shitty harddrive just crapped out.

>>25331358
>sees a man in a bookshop
'he must be here to me up'
>He is visibly doing something else
'it is only a performance, they're all after me'

>>25332945
*pick me up

>>25330860
>When was the last time you stepped into a chain bookstore?
The other day
>What is your stance on the current state of chain book purveyors?
The big chain bookstore in my area fucking sucks dick, but that's mainly because I'm in Canada, meaning that the section I tend to spend the most time in, the history section, is filled with shelves upon shelves of useless trash (Canadian history). I went to a Barnes and Noble in the US while I was down there recently and was actually surprised how good it was.

>>25331609
>Yes, I speak like the white midwestern emo rappers from whom I learned English
lol
based student of life
learn from what you live

>>25332891
Didn't ask, bitch.

>>25332993
canada tries to promote local culture by handing out gibs to authors who write on canadian subjects and (I believe) requirements for major publishers to put out X canadian books a year
but because there's minimums for this, it creates a culture of people writing dogshit shlock knowing they're guaranteed an advance from a publisher who needs to make quota
I don't know the right way a government should go about facilitating culture and nurturing the arts but it's definitely not how it's done in canada

>>25330860
A few months ago, but I don’t think I’ve bought a brand new book from a book store for almost a decade, I’m only there for the supplies like pens and notebooks. Last ones I remember buying new was the three Metro 2034-36 books in paperback
Even if I buy new I do it at book fairs usually. Latest purchase was a facsimile edition of LOTR in three books like two years ago