tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32570460.post3114387534772302046..comments2024-03-13T07:34:24.149+00:00Comments on The Age of Uncertainty: United we stand...Steerforthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07627936539372313828noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32570460.post-45047733344999109142008-07-28T22:21:00.000+00:002008-07-28T22:21:00.000+00:00Ah, Ms Baroque, now you're looking into my soft ce...Ah, Ms Baroque, now you're looking into my soft centre. That's not fair. When I was young my mum used to get her fruit and veg from a little man who came round the streets with a horse and cart just like the horse and cart in Steptoe and Son. One day he stopped coming. I suppose the horse must've died. Several years later I saw the man, older but still essentially the same, and it was his job to lock up the kids swings at night. He was such a sad sight, as if he'd shambled out of a Beckett play. To this day I've never forgotten him. He looked so incomplete, a man without a horse. But a bookshop is not a person. Now, if it was the last bookseller in some tiny, rundown shop down an old lane after the Kindle has taken over the world … yeah, then I might feel a twinge.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32570460.post-8055490041195559432008-07-28T21:28:00.000+00:002008-07-28T21:28:00.000+00:00Ah, but Jim, just because you don't go to them doe...Ah, but Jim, just because you don't go to them doesn't mean you wouldn't be sad to hear the last one had closed... like the last button-hook salesman, the last celluloid collar manufacturer, the last coachmaker.<BR/><BR/>I hope this in initiative works, Steerforth. Like Right-to-Buy before it, the end of the Net Book Agreement has exacerbated the very bumps on the "playing field" that it was supposed to level out.Ms Baroquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01836227454899083962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32570460.post-26343576555076364732008-07-25T19:53:00.000+00:002008-07-25T19:53:00.000+00:00I am not sure that the death of the bookshop is so...I am not sure that the death of the bookshop is something I personally would cry over. That's a thing thirty years ago I could never imagine saying but the simple truth is that I never visit bookshops any more. The nearest one to me is an hour bus ride away in the centre of Glasgow. It's too much time and trouble to visit one when I can buy online. I use Amazon constantly - to browse but I very rarely buy from them. To be honest I very rarely buy new books at all except for pressies.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32570460.post-9404925836582650882008-07-25T19:28:00.000+00:002008-07-25T19:28:00.000+00:00Our man P. Henderson works for Leading Edge.Our man P. Henderson works for Leading Edge.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15008909621122467399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32570460.post-36786503625018098812008-07-25T13:22:00.000+00:002008-07-25T13:22:00.000+00:00I know a reasonable amount about this actually (be...I know a reasonable amount about this actually (being involved in a writer's group and part of a local anthology about to come out trying to get bookshop-syndicated etc), but I think you are perfectly right that not many people are aware of all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of book-selling and I thank goodness for your blog making more people aware. Indeed I'm still finding out stuff that horrifies me via Fiction Bitch's blog etc.<BR/><BR/>By the by, you've just won an award for services to books @ mine (see The Honours List)<BR/><BR/>:-)The Poet Laura-eatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779308486569849157noreply@blogger.com