Bookstores without Borders

I got thinking of how convergence, which has created fewer and fewer news outlets, radio stations, film studios, newspapers, et al (limited the number of voices) has disappeared where we buy our newspapers, magazines, books and periodicals. Growing up a half century ago in New Brunswick, NJ, there were a dozen bookstores (some of that driven by New Brunswick being one of the campuses of Rutgers, the State University) and each one was as different as you could imagine from the other. Now, if you find two different booksellers in a major city, good work and the basic difference always seems to be what kind of coffee each sells.

In much the same way as I used to treasure small record labels, I used to have books from arcane publishers. Now how many are left? Five publishers, or so it seems. You have whatever is affiliated with McGraw-Hill and seemingly everyone else as the 'other side'. I'm not saying that's bad or if that's good--I don't know. That's probably my point. I have no idea what books I might have read, other than the ones I have, had the publishing and retail aspects of the industry been different.

My son, before I went into the hospital, got me Paul Roberts' The End of Oil because he knows I've become fond of T. Boone Pickens and that I'm angry at how addicted my country has become to fossil fuel. And that my actual anger about this addiction is how it has warped the country I am leaving him and his sister. Our dependence has caused us to whore ourselves out for a gallon of high test and to pretend that our values and core beliefs are much better off when subjected to the vagaries of situational ethics. What's right and what's wrong has a lot more to do with the nozzle and the cost per fill-up than it ever did when we kids without cares.

He got the paperback on sale not that long ago in one of those book superstores that has 'everything' but also nothing at the same time. I'll mention this book a lot in the weeks and months because we need to reinvent ourselves and reinvest in ourselves and a good start for you might well be to go find a copy of the book for yourself. The trick, I've discovered, isn't just owning books-it's reading them and allowing yourself to possess them, no matter how much they cost.
-bill kenny