I am a big fan of bookstores and coffee shops. I like it best when I can enjoy both at the same time. I don’t actually purchase that may books in paper format any more. At least not like I did a few years ago. I still listen to audiobooks and read using Kindle for the iPad. I think sitting in the middle of stacks while trying to write is inspirational. Some folks go to the library for this setting, but most libraries don’t have a coffee shop and most don’t have the kind of books written in the past year or so. Libraries smell like old books. I think historians like this smell, but not those of us who write about technology.
Grand Forks has some nice coffee shops, but not the kind of book store I like. Evidently, there is not a market for a real book store in Grand Forks. I don’t get it. Every suburb of Minneapolis has a Barnes and Noble or a Borders.
UND has outsourced the college bookstore. Barnes and Noble was here for a few years. Then came Follett. It started out as a book store. There was a large section for selling course books for students and a reasonable trade book section. I guess the kind of books I read are called trade books. Then they decided to interchange the part of the store dedicated to trade books with the part of the store dedicated to clothing and other UND branded goods. Evidently folks in Grand Forks would rather buy sweatshirts than books.
When I go the the coffee shop to work I feel like I sitting in the corner of Younkers or Daytons. It is just not right. College book stores need books.