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BACK TO READING AND WRITING
March 26, 2022:
When I moved to Corvallis, Oregon, in 2010, it was a town of about 58,000 people and had four bookstores. I don’t know what the proper person-to-bookstore ratio should be, but that seemed low. In the twelve years since, that number has been cut in half.
It’s been both alarming and sad.
The first to go was Borders back in 2011. It was Corvallis’s only chain store and the only one to sell new books exclusively. As part of the bankruptcy liquidation for the entire Borders chain, it closed just one year after my arrival. But what a glorious year that was! Borders was an all-too-easy excuse to get out of the house, have an iced Seattle’s coffee, and spend a few hours reading and writing.
Then, last month, we lost another one.
When the pandemic began in March 2020, I held my breath that our local bookstores would survive it. There was a concern — and it was well-founded — that mandatory store closures, social distancing, and other attempts to avoid infection would push more of us toward buying our reading material online. But for me, enjoying a book isn’t just about cracking open the pages. It’s about discovering it in the first place. That’s the role places like Browser’s filled.
Browser’s had locations in both Corvallis and the nearby town of Albany. Unlike the slick, corporate shininess of Borders, both stores were the quintessential holes-in-the-wall. They were cavernous spaces with tons of nooks and crannies. Thousands of used titles were stuffed onto teetering shelves or stacked like cairns in the aisles. The place smelled faintly of mildew, strongly of dust, powerfully of old paper. Occasionally you’d stumble across a bench or chair lost in the clutter, and you’d sit and read for a while — only to realize later that an hour had passed. But getting off your feet helped. After all, one had to pace himself in a place like Browser’s, a place whose very name denoted the experience. And I was all in! I expected to stay for a while. I expected to wander alone. I expected to find things I didn’t even know I wanted. It was modern-day treasure-hunting.
Although Browser’s was not felled by the pandemic — it was a personal decision of the owner to close the stores after two decades — it still stings. Stores like Browser’s are becoming harder and harder to find, and they’re not something that one can create overnight. Clutter like that takes years, even decades, to cultivate properly. The experience of browsing often hinges on having enough clutter to sift through and finding that unexpected book that’s been out of print for decades. I will miss Browser’s the place. But even more, I will miss Browser’s the experience.
March 26, 2022:
When I moved to Corvallis, Oregon, in 2010, it was a town of about 58,000 people and had four bookstores. I don’t know what the proper person-to-bookstore ratio should be, but that seemed low. In the twelve years since, that number has been cut in half.
It’s been both alarming and sad.
The first to go was Borders back in 2011. It was Corvallis’s only chain store and the only one to sell new books exclusively. As part of the bankruptcy liquidation for the entire Borders chain, it closed just one year after my arrival. But what a glorious year that was! Borders was an all-too-easy excuse to get out of the house, have an iced Seattle’s coffee, and spend a few hours reading and writing.
Then, last month, we lost another one.
When the pandemic began in March 2020, I held my breath that our local bookstores would survive it. There was a concern — and it was well-founded — that mandatory store closures, social distancing, and other attempts to avoid infection would push more of us toward buying our reading material online. But for me, enjoying a book isn’t just about cracking open the pages. It’s about discovering it in the first place. That’s the role places like Browser’s filled.
Browser’s had locations in both Corvallis and the nearby town of Albany. Unlike the slick, corporate shininess of Borders, both stores were the quintessential holes-in-the-wall. They were cavernous spaces with tons of nooks and crannies. Thousands of used titles were stuffed onto teetering shelves or stacked like cairns in the aisles. The place smelled faintly of mildew, strongly of dust, powerfully of old paper. Occasionally you’d stumble across a bench or chair lost in the clutter, and you’d sit and read for a while — only to realize later that an hour had passed. But getting off your feet helped. After all, one had to pace himself in a place like Browser’s, a place whose very name denoted the experience. And I was all in! I expected to stay for a while. I expected to wander alone. I expected to find things I didn’t even know I wanted. It was modern-day treasure-hunting.
Although Browser’s was not felled by the pandemic — it was a personal decision of the owner to close the stores after two decades — it still stings. Stores like Browser’s are becoming harder and harder to find, and they’re not something that one can create overnight. Clutter like that takes years, even decades, to cultivate properly. The experience of browsing often hinges on having enough clutter to sift through and finding that unexpected book that’s been out of print for decades. I will miss Browser’s the place. But even more, I will miss Browser’s the experience.
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