Back In My Day, We Bought Books At A Store

Slowly I am converting my book collection to try and go all digital. My plans includes picking up a Kindle and using Amazon like crazy. There will be some road bumps in this, as I know I will continue to go to the used book stores of the world to pick up whatever may find itself in my gaze.

Book stores are slowly going away in the world, but much like comic shops they continue to advance in spaces in the digital world. There are still many that are active and around. For the longest time in Bloomington, Babbit's Books would have massive selections of used books that I could find on the cheap. Some of the books would be very old and expensive at times, but you could always count on them to have a couple of the old Far Side or Calvin and Hobbes books for a couple of bucks or so.

I used to take road trips to Chicago specifically so I could hang around a mall or two, or visit the four floors of books that was Boarders back in the day. The store was right along Lake Shore Drive, and I would park my car at Shedd Aquarium and hike it all the way down to it. I vaguely recall going there with some friends, but I know I definitely went there a couple of times by my lonesome. 

There was a basement, main level, and two stories above that. I remember the two floors above always had new books, DVDs, and much more. There was always remodeling being done, so I never got to see the place in full glory. 

It was at this place that I decided to get my first independent comic book collection, which shall be called a graphic novel from here on out. Usually I would pick up whatever my comic shop owner, Jim, would recommend. But this time, before the time of Amazon suggested readings, I would find something on my own. It was the first time that I can recall that I really saw a huge amount of graphic novels in one area.

So what caught my eye? A little collection called The Last Temptation by Alice Cooper. Yeah, I was in to the dark stuff. It was the artwork that ultimately sold me on the book, and I have had it in my collection since. The story was definitely on the weirder side. The book was done in conjunction with an album of the same name, of which I still don't think I've listened to as of this day. Picking up the book was a very good decision.

I remember that this was also the book store that I first discovered movie scripts being sold in a book store. I picked up a couple of Kevin Smith ones, as well as Tarantino's original screenplay for Natural Born Killers. I think I only ever read the Tarantino one, and the others have been lost to the ages.

I'm not sad about my book collection going away, save for a few of the really special books that I want to try and save if I can. I enjoy the adventure of the hunt for the book. Finding the good deal on something I know that I will enjoy. The smell of the bookstore. The hours spent browsing through the aisles. I hope that the idea of the book store never goes away. I think that the last book store that will ever be around will be one big library that collects them all. An Alexandria type of place that has some natural disaster hit it and everything gets cleared away, lost in the echos of time.