Positively Eighth Street

"Staggering through the aisles of today’s giant bookstores, it’s hard not to imagine that most of the merchandise won’t eventually find its way to the nearest Jersey landfill rather than a reader’s night table. Ever since these behemoth-sized emporiums took root in the 1980s, trafficking in assorted lamps, T-shirts, gewgaws, Simone de Beauvoir coffee mugs, Samuel Beckett tote bags, and — oh yes — books, the importance of the printed has become almost a consumerist afterthought. It’s the effect of the literature that these stores sell — a perfume of culture. So omnipresent has this book sales surround become, it almost seems as if — even to those forty and beyond — it has always been with us. But bookstores used to just sell books. ..."
RealityStudio