Totally Frustrated and Saddened by What I Find at Barnes & Noble (And What I Don't Find) Nowadays

I very clearly remember the feeling of stepping into a Barnes & Noble bookstore with a feeling that I was certain to leave the store with at least four or five books in my arms. I remember just how much fun that was. The problem is I can't remember the last time it happened.

However, a quick look at Wikipedia tells me it was probably not too long after Elliott Management Corporation acquired the company for $683 million back in August 2019. B&N remains a wholly owned subsidiary of Elliott's to this day. Elliott also owns and runs the huge Waterstones Booksellers chain in the UK, and the problem is that the new owners decided to use the British bookselling model on Barnes & Noble rather than using the American model on Waterstones. 

That means effectively that everything sold in either chain is priced at the recommended list price that the publisher chooses or it is put on sale in one of those "buy one at full price, get another at 50% off, schemes that I seldom use (in effect, that means paying 75% of list for each book). I lived for several years in London and frequented Waterstones because it seemed to be everywhere I went, but I probably didn't make that decision more than a half-dozen times in all those years because the "second book" part of the deal was limited to just a handful of books similar to the one I really wanted at the moment.

That used to be not such a big problem at B&N (even in London), though, because of the always-arbitrary selection of bestsellers that they chose to discount in both hardcover and softcover versions. Look at this picture:

This is today's bestseller grouping from my local store. If there's a similar grouping for softcover books, I never ran across it. Now admittedly, there are a couple of books here that may actually be worth reading, but B&N has so obviously tailored the list to highlight the lowest common denominator of reading tastes that I hardly ever find anything on that shelf that I want to take home with me. If you're not into thrillers by the usual suspects, you're pretty much out of luck. (If there's a similar selection of nonfiction, YA, and children's books, I missed those, too, because I don't really shop those departments.)

Remember those fun displays of what I call "remainders" from major publishers that B&N used to place so prominently in their stores? Well, don't hold your breath until you pluck some current fiction or nonfiction from the chain's new, horrible Book Annex groupings. Clue: you're going to die first. Those displays are only made up now of stale, cheap reprint editions in the nonfiction area, and of classics in the fiction area. (That could very well be because publishers don't do the huge print runs like they used to - meaning that the remainders stock is limited from the source.)

I used to count on going into a B&N and walking out with five or six one-or-two-year-old previous bestsellers for about $40 and another two current books that I paid near full price for - along with a couple of magazines. All for about $80 or $90. And I did that every 60 days or so. 

Now look at these photos from the store this morning near noon and ask yourself what is missing from each of them:

If you guessed "people," you win the prize. There were actually fewer people in this large store today than there were workers (I think I counted four other people plus about 4 small children).

Don't get me wrong; I want to see Barnes & Noble do well. They are, after having effectively run all of the other bookstore chains either completely out of business or out of my area, now the only major bookseller available to me. I hope that the B&N braintrust figures out that their new marketing strategy is not going to work...especially during a period of hyperinflation like the one we are experiencing right now. If they don't, they are doomed just the way they helped make sure that all the competition was doomed.

Short Takes: My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

 

I find myself in kind of an interesting position with Robert Dugoni's My Sister's Grave. This 2014 novel is the first in Dugoni's Tracy Crosswhite series (although it was preceded by what appears to be a short story and a novella in which the character appears), and the only other book from the series I've read is 2021's In Her Tracks. So I first met Tracy as a more settled and mature cop who was definitely marked by the abduction and murder of her younger sisters when they were still teens. That experience was a life-changing experience for Tracy, of course, but I didn't come away with the true awfulness of what happened all those years earlier - or all the little nuances involved in having something like that murder occur in a very small, and relatively isolated, Washington town.

In My Sister's Grave Dugoni gives us a coming-of-age/origin story that begins when the two girls are small children and explains why and how they became such close sisters despite the four-year difference in their ages. Because Tracy had such a second-mother-like relationship with her fifteen-year-old sister, and because she was the last person to see the girl alive, she carried a constant feeling of guilt around with her for the next twenty years.

The novel begins, in fact, twenty years after the murder when all of the research done by Tracy during her off-duty hours as a member of the Seattle police department finally begins to pay off by creating doubts about the way the murder trial of her sister's killer was handled. Now Tracy is on a mission to expose the truth about what really happened all those years ago - but to do so she will first have to free the man who has been in prison for 20 years. Be careful what you wish for.

My Sister's Grave is a really good introduction to the series to follow, especially because of Dugoni's skill in creating a fully-fleshed and believable character like Stacy Crosswhite. Even some of the side characters I expect to see in future books are very well presented here. But the book's final chapters are really a fairly run-of-the-mill thriller plot in which it always feels like only a matter of time (usually at the very last second) before the heroine and other good guys find the miracle they need to survive. 

I would give this one three stars out of five, definitely enough here to make me want to read the next one.

Short Takes: Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom

 

Stephanie Rosenbloom, a travel writer for the New York Times, over the course of one year lived in, and explored, four different cities (apparently on her own dime), including her home base of Manhattan. The other three cities were Paris, Florence, and Istanbul. 

But here's the hook: she did it all alone. 

Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude explains the wonderful benefits of traveling alone and why Rosenbloom prefers that mode of travel and exploration. On a personal note, I think I should mention that because I've been blessed with one of the most understanding wives in the world, I've been traveling this way at least once a year for more than thirty years now - so I was already predisposed to agree with the premise of the book. 

The main reason I enjoy traveling solo so much (and I think it's also the strongest argument that Rosenbloom makes in favor of "alone time") is that my tastes can be a little eccentric. I enjoy traveling, especially when on long road trips, in a way that few others enjoy to the same degree. So as Rosenbloom puts it, this way I don't have to feel guilty - or frustrated - in trying to equally split choices with others who feel differently. For instance, I'm primarily a wanderer. When I come to a crossroads that offers near equally adequate driving conditions, I never know which direction I'm going to turn until I make the turn, and then there's no looking back. I just play a hunch...which has admittedly led me into a few "iffy" situations. 

And that's what leads directly to some of the other solo-travel benefits that Bloomberg speaks to in the book: meeting and potentially bonding with strangers who are either traveling through or live in the area; quiet time that allows for a full appreciation and absorption of everything around you (as she puts it: "bringing into sharp relief the sights, sounds, and smells that one isn't necessarily attuned to in the presence of company"); the opportunity for self-reflection and evaluation; and best of all, the chance to travel guilt free (my wife has told me more than once that she has seen enough old cemeteries now to last a lifetime. I'm sure she would still be willing to stop at one or two cemetery-discoveries a trip, but I know that I would go so quickly through them that I would be unable to absorb the atmosphere peculiar to each of them. 

The prose in Alone Time seems to vary from section to section in ease-of-reading, but that's likely more me than Rosenbloom because of the trance that prose heavily peppered with foreign place-names often leaves me in. That's probably why I enjoyed - and got through- the sections on Paris and New York most. It is intriguing to watch Rosenbloom look at her section of New York City through the eyes of a tourist, a skill she mastered by spending the first nine months of the year in the other three cities first. That's something I want to try with Houston soon.

There are lots of tips to help you enjoy, and stay safe during, solo travels at the end of Alone Time, so if you've ever considered solo travel, this is a good place to begin your research.

Slowing Down Is Good for Me

 

I've purposely slowed down my reading pace (well, it was not entirely voluntary for me to slow down...but that's another story for another time), and I find myself enjoying books - of several genres - more than I have in years. Rather than always chasing the shiny new covers and flashy new novelists of the day, I'm letting one book just lead me naturally to the next one. That doesn't mean that I'm reading one at a time, just that I'm reading fewer total pages per day. And that works wonders for me. It's even, I hope, freed me up to doing shorter...but semi-regular...posting again - good intentions that may go astray, I admit.

So instead of the 120 to 130 books I've read each year for a long time, I'm probably going to read, re-read, and re-re-read maybe 60 or 70 each year for a while. The biggest surprise as I near one-half a year at this new pace, is that my concentration and first-read comprehension levels seem to me to have significantly increased. I can't tell you how often I use to have to go back and read paragraphs, or even whole pages, for a second timebecause I had obliviously slipped into some kind of daydream. 

All that said, this is a simple list of what I read in May:

1. The Rising Tide - Ann Cleeves
2. Expanded Universe - Robert A. Heinlein
3. Hell and Back - Craig Johnson
4. Justice Corrupted - Ted Cruz
5. Tastes Like War - Grace M. Cho
6. The Jealousy Man - Jo Nesbø
7. The Best American Travel Writing 2012 - Various Writers

Now I'll find out where June carries me.

Short Takes: The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves

 

 I admit that I am so deeply invested in the characters in both the Shetland and Vera series by Ann Cleeves that I can't imagine ever reading a bad book in either series. I, in fact, finished the Shetland series quite a while ago without ever being disappointed by one of those. I am always happy if the books continue to further develop the characters and age them, more-or-less, in real time between story lines. Plots are somewhat secondary. So all of my comments on either series come with that warning.  

The Rising Tide is no exception. This one from 2022 finds Vera rather foolishly putting herself in near-fatal personal danger during an investigation when she runs off half-cocked without waiting for any of her team to accompany her. That's not something I thought Vera - who's not exactly in fighting condition anymore - capable of. But then, Vera does expose many of her personal weaknesses and emotional flaws in this one, also, and that all just serves to make her more vulnerable and real to readers who have watched her change over the years. 

The basic premise of this one is that a now-elderly small group of high school friends gathers every five years on what becomes an island when the tide comes in each day. This time one of them appears to have been murdered, and because the murder happened on an island the number of suspects is limited. But is it really? Or did someone time access to the island perfectly enough to get onto the island, commit a murder, and get back off again just in the nick of time? It's all up to Vera, Joe, and the rest of the team to figure it all out.

But really, it's this relatively new self-reflective Vera who makes The Rising Tide a special book to me. Vera realizes now that she sees Joe as the son she never had, and that by keeping him tethered to her the way she does will only limit his longterm career with the police, not enhance it. But in the end, she just can't turn loose. It will be  interesting to see where Cleeves is going to take their relationship next.

You guessed it...I have to give this one a full five-star rating.

Short Takes: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

 

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is a memoir detailing Perry's addiction problems, fears, insecurities, successes, and repeated failures. The memoir ends on a very hopeful note despite the multiple relapses inflicted upon the author's ravaged body for almost his entire adult lifetime. 

I found the book to be fairly well written but not as motivational and moving as I expected it would be. I did, however, come away from the book wishing all the best for Matthew Perry and sincerely hoping that he will be able to remain sober for the rest of his life. The man has been through almost unimaginable mental and physical hardships, and I suspect that many people fighting problems like his will be very moved and motivated by reading the memoir. I salute Mr. Perry for that reason.

I would rate this one about 3.5 stars out of 5.