Whilst out doing my Christmas shopping this Saturday, I wandered into the Books Etc shop in the middle of Wimbledon, which was having a Closing Down sale. The shelves were already pretty bare, and the place was just a mess. Books everywhere, no semblance of order, and a completely random selection wherever you looked.
I noticed this book sitting on top of one of the boxes, and it seemed pretty apt for the setting.
Books Etc was a seller of new books, not second-hand, but at this stage in its retail life it looked like one of those shops where only the owner knows where to find a particular book. Of course, here there was just one bored till worker and no-one else around.
I walked past the shop again last night, and it was completely empty. The lights were off, the shelves were empty, and the doors were closed. Another victim of the recession, of the internet, of Amazon?
I’m a massive fan of Amazon (and its ilk), because I buy a lot of books and I like to do so as cheaply as I can. As much as I enjoy going to a bookshop and aimlessly browsing, I find that Amazon’s recommendation engine is a much better way of finding new authors and new books than randomly looking through shelves.
The only time I really use a bookshop is when they have 3 for 2 offers on. And if I paid more attention to the special offers section on Amazon, I’d probably not even do that…
