In Praise of Good Bookstores, Jeff Deutsch (ISBN 978-0691207766, Princeton University Press)

This book was a tip from the book reviewers in the newspaper I read. And it is clear why book lovers like this book. Written by a former bookstore manager it is a basically long tribute to the bookstore, elaborating why it is important that we as a society ensure they survive. If you love books you will also love this one. Besides the fact that I am sympathetic to the author’s point of view I also found it a treasure trove of quotes. Deutsch draws on his lifelong experience of selling books and puts special importance on browsing in a bookstore as an opportunity for discovery. He contrasts books as objects with value versus other objects which are mere commodities and asserts that what we read makes us who we are. Reading a book is a slow activity and as such a bit of an anachronism in our digital age where everything goes fast. As such books form an opportunity to slow down and to temporarily disconnect from the hectic daily pace. Because reading books takes time it allows a reader to really get immersed in the worlds they evoke, absorbing the content a little bit as if they were really memories of our own personal experiences.