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Read Between The Lines-Wired.mp3
By Tony Long Also by this reporter--from Wired News
02:00 AM Oct, 12, 2006
Is there a more agreeable way of passing a few idle hours than roaming through the haphazard stacks of a slightly musty, idiosyncratically stocked, independent bookstore?Apparently there is, because they're dying all over the country. Even in those citadels of intellectual enlightenment, New York and San Francisco, the independents are taking a beating.
还有比徜徉在一家摆放独特的独立小书店里面，在那些随意堆放的、散发着微微霉味的书堆里消磨掉几个钟头更惬意的事吗？答案是肯定的。那些各具特色的独立书店正在消亡呢，就连身处当今文化启蒙大本营的纽约和三藩市都未能使其避免关门困境……
Manhattan is about to lose venerable Coliseum Books for the second time in five years -- this time, apparently, for good. The City by the Bay, meanwhile, has lost several of its neighborhood stores in just a few short months. Across the bay in Berkeley, Cody's, one of the most famous independents in the country, closed its Telegraph Avenue store in July.
It's the same song elsewhere on both coasts and across the interior, too. The reason is not surprising. Chain bookstores, big-box stores like Wal-Mart that stock best sellers alongside disposable diapers and, of course, various online competitors are all conspiring to kill off the little guy.
……原因尽在预料之中：大量的连锁书店、像Wal-Mart那样将畅销书堆放在一次性纸尿裤旁边贩卖的零售大鳄，还有网络上涌起的形形色色的竞争者正在合谋消灭掉处于弱者地位的独立书店。
The following things are more or less true: Chain bookstores have larger inventories -- albeit safer and more predictable (and therefore more commercially viable) ones -- than many independents. Books aren't necessarily all you'll find there, either. Most of them sell music and DVDs, too, and if you're looking for a 2007 "I Love My Cat" wall calendar, Barnes & Noble is definitely the place to go.
Buying a book from Amazon.com or some other online dealer is (sometimes) cheaper than buying it from an independent bookseller. (I say sometimes, because when you factor in shipping and handling, your actual savings is often negligible.)
I can think of no reason why anyone within 10 miles of an actual bookstore would buy a book at Costco or Wal-Mart. Ever.
The point is, the corporations and the internet have changed the commercial landscape in this country, and for the worse. Independent booksellers are but one victim of this disturbing trend. Entertainment technology threatens the single-screen movie house and the local music store with extinction. Likewise, your local video rental store is also an endangered species. The corporatization of coffee annihilates small cafes, leaving us with the uniform blandness of Starbucks. The big losers are small merchants of almost every type, and those of us who see mom-and-pop businesses as the backbone of a healthy, vibrant community.
（难道真的会有那么一天，我们大家都得像喝平淡无味的星巴克一样，都去看那些千篇一律、内容乏味的所谓畅销书~Orz~）
OK, maybe it's more convenient and a little bit cheaper to do your book shopping at Amazon. But at what cost to your quality of life? We're at our best, and probably our happiest, when social intercourse takes place outside, in town and city alike. You know your local merchant, you see your neighbors on the street. Is saving five bucks off the latest best seller by buying it online really worth another boarded-up storefront on your local commercial thoroughfare?
One of the singular pleasures of wandering into an eclectic independent is the joy of discovering the unexpected. (It's called "browsing." That's real browsing, by the way, not the word as it's been hijacked to put a smiley face on the soulless practice of online shopping.) You go into the shop intending to find the latest novel by your favorite author and you emerge, perhaps an hour later, with two or three other titles under your arm, by authors you hadn't even heard of before breakfast.
And you probably found those authors because the people who staff independent bookstores know their stuff. That, along with more interesting and challenging inventories, is what separates the independent from the chain. It underpins the argument for small over large, for active over passive, for brick and mortar over online.
The only justification I can think of for buying a book online is if you can't get it from your local bookseller and in my experience, that's rare. Otherwise, don't do it. You're feeding the corporate beast at the expense of the little guy. And you know what? You're probably a little guy, too, even if you think you're a big guy.
Most of us in this world are little guys. And consumer technology is making us smaller all the time.
我们中的绝大多数都是弱者，而消费技术的发展则从来都只会加强我们的弱势地位——想想吧，给公司当牛做马创造价值的是我们这些小老百姓，给公司贡献利润、把辛苦挣来的钱送给公司的还是我们！
**注：read between the lines本意是“体会言外之意”，但个人窃以为，在这里重点在于“between the lines”，那些Lines应该是书店里面实实在在的一排排的书架（而书店则是由brick and mortar构筑成的实实在在的书店），而不是网页上一排排绝无异味的目录。
还有比徜徉在一家摆放独特的独立小书店里面，在那些随意堆放的、散发着微微霉味的书堆里消磨掉几个钟头更惬意的事吗？答案是肯定的。那些各具特色的独立书店正在消亡呢，就连身处当今文化启蒙大本营的纽约和三藩市都未能使其避免关门困境……
Manhattan is about to lose venerable Coliseum Books for the second time in five years -- this time, apparently, for good. The City by the Bay, meanwhile, has lost several of its neighborhood stores in just a few short months. Across the bay in Berkeley, Cody's, one of the most famous independents in the country, closed its Telegraph Avenue store in July.
It's the same song elsewhere on both coasts and across the interior, too. The reason is not surprising. Chain bookstores, big-box stores like Wal-Mart that stock best sellers alongside disposable diapers and, of course, various online competitors are all conspiring to kill off the little guy.
……原因尽在预料之中：大量的连锁书店、像Wal-Mart那样将畅销书堆放在一次性纸尿裤旁边贩卖的零售大鳄，还有网络上涌起的形形色色的竞争者正在合谋消灭掉处于弱者地位的独立书店。
The following things are more or less true: Chain bookstores have larger inventories -- albeit safer and more predictable (and therefore more commercially viable) ones -- than many independents. Books aren't necessarily all you'll find there, either. Most of them sell music and DVDs, too, and if you're looking for a 2007 "I Love My Cat" wall calendar, Barnes & Noble is definitely the place to go.
Buying a book from Amazon.com or some other online dealer is (sometimes) cheaper than buying it from an independent bookseller. (I say sometimes, because when you factor in shipping and handling, your actual savings is often negligible.)
I can think of no reason why anyone within 10 miles of an actual bookstore would buy a book at Costco or Wal-Mart. Ever.
The point is, the corporations and the internet have changed the commercial landscape in this country, and for the worse. Independent booksellers are but one victim of this disturbing trend. Entertainment technology threatens the single-screen movie house and the local music store with extinction. Likewise, your local video rental store is also an endangered species. The corporatization of coffee annihilates small cafes, leaving us with the uniform blandness of Starbucks. The big losers are small merchants of almost every type, and those of us who see mom-and-pop businesses as the backbone of a healthy, vibrant community.
（难道真的会有那么一天，我们大家都得像喝平淡无味的星巴克一样，都去看那些千篇一律、内容乏味的所谓畅销书~Orz~）
OK, maybe it's more convenient and a little bit cheaper to do your book shopping at Amazon. But at what cost to your quality of life? We're at our best, and probably our happiest, when social intercourse takes place outside, in town and city alike. You know your local merchant, you see your neighbors on the street. Is saving five bucks off the latest best seller by buying it online really worth another boarded-up storefront on your local commercial thoroughfare?
One of the singular pleasures of wandering into an eclectic independent is the joy of discovering the unexpected. (It's called "browsing." That's real browsing, by the way, not the word as it's been hijacked to put a smiley face on the soulless practice of online shopping.) You go into the shop intending to find the latest novel by your favorite author and you emerge, perhaps an hour later, with two or three other titles under your arm, by authors you hadn't even heard of before breakfast.
And you probably found those authors because the people who staff independent bookstores know their stuff. That, along with more interesting and challenging inventories, is what separates the independent from the chain. It underpins the argument for small over large, for active over passive, for brick and mortar over online.
The only justification I can think of for buying a book online is if you can't get it from your local bookseller and in my experience, that's rare. Otherwise, don't do it. You're feeding the corporate beast at the expense of the little guy. And you know what? You're probably a little guy, too, even if you think you're a big guy.
Most of us in this world are little guys. And consumer technology is making us smaller all the time.
我们中的绝大多数都是弱者，而消费技术的发展则从来都只会加强我们的弱势地位——想想吧，给公司当牛做马创造价值的是我们这些小老百姓，给公司贡献利润、把辛苦挣来的钱送给公司的还是我们！
**注：read between the lines本意是“体会言外之意”，但个人窃以为，在这里重点在于“between the lines”，那些Lines应该是书店里面实实在在的一排排的书架（而书店则是由brick and mortar构筑成的实实在在的书店），而不是网页上一排排绝无异味的目录。
1 Comments:
现在的人吃饭都选则快餐，还有多少人愿意静下心来看书啊。网上订阅的RSS信息已经可以把人喂饱了，什么时候网断了，就该上书店找书看了。
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