What We Gain from a Good Bookstore
I have come to value 2nd hand bookstores so much in day to day life that I maintain it as an almost 'must have' when assessing living locations. Great coffee shops are a dime a dozen in reasonably affluent areas, but a good 2nd hand bookshop adds so much warmth and charm to an area.<p>I don't have any in walking distance from where I live right now, but I'm moving to NYC soon and will aim to correct that. (Shouldn't be too hard, right?)<p>> Think of what’s happened at the Strand, where a coffee shop recently joined some ground-floor bookshelves and where you can’t adjust your glasses without hitting some Strand-branded merch.<p>I did notice that when I was there in May. They place was overstuffed and too commercial. I also didn't get a sense of what Deutsch calls the "slow time of the browse" because I was too caught up keeping polite distance from the too-crowded aisles.