BRING BACK THE TRADITIONAL BOOKSHOP
Posted by Stuart Walton Monday 16 November 2009 ,The Guardian.

No more lounging in Waterstone's or browsing in Borders – turn over an old leaf with the starchy, strait-laced booksellers of old
When the Borders Group first imported its corporate ambience to the UK in 1998, it seemed the book business had been made anew. Here were stores in which not only could you get away with browsing noncommittally, you were positively encouraged to do so. There were armchairs for lolling in while you read a chapter or two, as well as coffee-shops that offered cappuccinos and a range of sugar-laden treats to keep your energy levels up while lolling.

It wasn't long before Waterstone's followed suit, the bigger branches kitted out with the kinds of squashy brown leather sofas they have in the Groucho Club, sweet little window seats, and the de rigueur waft of Costa Coffee fumes. It's all so much more civilised than yesteryear. We have left behind the brutally commodified atmosphere of the old book chains, and seen it replaced with a proper air of studious contemplation more appropriate to the business in hand.

Except, I've had enough now. It may be lovely to be able to read a chunk of a book in an unhurried fashion while deciding to buy, but I don't believe that's what most of these sofa-lollers are doing. Bookshops have now taken on the atmosphere of municipal libraries, with people killing an empty hour or so between arrangements, or else just waiting for the rain to stop. I caught a man in Waterstone's in Piccadilly, London, with his feet up over the end of the sofa, settling himself agreeably while leafing through a large work of war history.

Furthermore, since people now expect to be able to sit and read, there is an unspoken battle for sofa-space, with the result that, if every seat is taken, they make do with the floor, transforming the place less into the local library than the departure lounge at Gatwick. A pair of backpackers in the Charing Cross Road Borders had set up camp in front of (wouldn't you know it?) Philosophy, spreading out their gear and sitting cross-legged at the foot of the shelves to read graphic novels, impervious to the Excuse-mes of those of us trying to get to the Badious (I know, I know, it's what we deserve).

The smell of coffee-machines is now the default aroma of the urban environment in Britain, beguiling enough when you're on the point of flagging, vaguely sickening when you're already satiated with caffeine. Once held mythically to be a great way to sell your house, it now hovers like a bilious miasma over the business of book-buying, for no other reason than to smarten up those profit-margins that have been dented by encouraging people to lounge about with no intention of buying a book.

There will be people who still feel it's good to be able to sit and think, without being pressured into making a decision. I do remember a fearsome manager at the WH Smith of my childhood, who used to follow you about tidying up the shelves every time you put back a book you had just briefly looked at. But I also remember a small independent bookshop, staffed only by a man who looked far too young to be wearing a cravat, and who only looked up from his own book in order to tie up your purchase in brown parcel paper and string.

That to me is a more gemütlich experience than the Borders/Waterstone's approach. Nobody used the place as a railway station waiting-room (there was nowhere to sit), and nor were you likely to be sold a Danish pastry with which you could then gum up the pages of the next book you started leafing through.

The backlash starts here.

Footnote:
Stuart Walton is the author of Humanity: An Emotional History (2004) and Out Of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication (2001), which, between them, have been translated into seven languages. He lives in Brighton.
Check his blog here.