I would be incredibly sad for bookshops to go actually. They are essentially the only type of shop I enjoy visiting. I don't group them together with the likes of HMV either, as although they both share a business model which at its core involves something that is now available in digital format in analogue form, I really do not like reading things on screen. Similarly, when I buy a book, I do not but it just for the experience of reading it, if that makes sense. They are things I like to collect, and I become attached to specific copies. Never feel like that with films and music. But then I have never really had much of a proclivity for either. Put alternatively, I can see why there would be a demand for book retail to live on, whereas the days of CDs and DVDs as a physical medium are totally toast. Throwaway fashion, or whatever it is called.
The problem I often find with book shops these days, however, is that often they are just simply not big enough to accommodate specific demand, even for fairly mainstream titles. I went all over Basingstoke the other day for instance looking for somewhere that sold the sixth book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Hard to think of a more mainstream author really, but nowhere had it, so I resorted to ordering it online instead.
Anyway, on the subject of genuinely awful high street things. How has WHSmith not gone under yet? Truly dreadful establishment. And it always has been.
