tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post5867792696132505028..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `As If They Were Asbestos'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-44157677305766563362018-04-25T08:47:24.835-05:002018-04-25T08:47:24.835-05:00This even applies to my local used bookstore, a go...This even applies to my local used bookstore, a good one. A lot of the treasures are hidden upstairs where we cannot go, and the downstairs rooms tend toward the popular and commercial. We're lucky that they're still open to foot traffic at all, now that their main business is online.<br /><br />I often have that wrong-side-of-history feeling. Novels? Formal poetry? Writers are like the lacemakers of another age, seeing their own demise. The current system of publishing (lead books, lead books) and distribution is unhelpful to almost all of them.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-50616320297842175762018-04-24T23:24:51.230-05:002018-04-24T23:24:51.230-05:00Yes, this trend is dismal. What I would give for f...Yes, this trend is dismal. What I would give for full access to rummage through the "Closed Stacks!" I noticed early on that the new San Francisco library downtown was largely denuded of books and kept asking the librarians where they all were. And at the library book sales, the tables are also full of contemporary rubbish - not just the so-called "Literature" section, either. One goes to the "History" table and encounters only compilations of Thomas Friedman's pompous columns for the New York Times.Foosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02200694434095248343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-32552258090583454852018-04-24T05:32:15.062-05:002018-04-24T05:32:15.062-05:00I remember walking over to the central library whe...I remember walking over to the central library when I worked in downtown Houston. It was a refreshing escape from the workday.<br /><br />Several books marked "Discarded" from that library have ended on my shelves, including one of my favorites: Czeslaw Milosz's <i>The History of Polish Literature</i>.Dwighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688525659034403580noreply@blogger.com