bookstore breakup

Because I'm still in the midst of a reading binge, I've got a different kind of review for now: bookstore. More specifically, the Strand--home to "18 miles of books," except of course the books you want. The Strand is officially on notice!

It takes a lot for me to denounce (and/or reject) an independent bookstore. But the Strand has failed me repeatedly in the following ways:

1. They never have the books I want. Atonement...Last Exit to Brooklyn...The Sportswriter...and several others. It's dicey to go into a used bookstore with specific titles in mind, but those were hardly rare ones. And in each case, they had every other Ian McEwan book, every other Richard Ford book, etc. They didn't even have Gossip Girl (sorry, Sheryl!), which is not only old at this point, but there are a million copies floating around that people don't want to keep on their bookshelves. Also, neither the main Union Square branch nor the Fulton Street branch had any of the books. This is less the fault of the store than the sellers, but still: disappointing. Their retail books are just as hard to find.

2. They hate short people. When they do have a book I want, it's invariably located on the shelf eight feet above my head. Sometimes, like today, that means going to find a tall, friendly clerk to fetch the book for me. And while I'm usually all for having attractive guys do my manual labor, it's an inconvenience.

3. Manhattan-style space management. For a store that tries so hard to be browser friendly (tables with eclectic picks, lots of cool old books in odd corners), there's no room. The aisles are about two feet wide, which means it's impossible to get around the senior citizen professor browsing the philosophy display, or the hipster girl holding What is the What.

Anyway, it makes me miss my beloved Harvard Book Store something fierce. And it also makes me envious of those who get to visit Powell's in the near future. So in conclusion, Libya is a land of contrasts...and the Strand is dead to me for a little while.