Posted on 11/01/2020 7:45:32 AM PST by Rummyfan
It has become another improbable victim of the culture wars
As it happened, on my last trip The Strand had none of the books I was looking for. I wasn’t searching for any viciously right-wing tracts. The store had simply decided to go big and long on the ‘improving’ literature that it seeks to push on New Yorkers (Kendi, Coates, DiAngelo and all the rest) and it had done so at the expense of the variety and pluralism it once displayed. For instance near the front entrance on my last visit there stood a considerable quantity of the book (notorious to the readers of this publication) titled In Defense of Looting. Were I not on a guest in the country I should have picked up that whole steaming pile, walked out of the door and dumped them on the kerbside. For aside from believing that the author of that book should be taken at their word, it is quite something for a shop in a town that recently suffered an outbreak of looting to be prominently promoting a book which explains not only why ‘all cops are bastards’ but why the looting of other people’s businesses – businesses sometimes just as old and venerable as The Strand, incidentally – is not just fine but justified. Of course a store should stock a book. But what they push tells you where they stand.
So I understand why people might flock to The Strand when the call goes out to save it. They lingered there for many an hour in their student years. Which literary visitor to the city has not, in the past, left the place with an overweight luggage-case full of books? But The Strand is not the store that it once was.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.us ...
Folks shouldn’t put all the blame on book stores.
Shelf space/encaps/dumps in book stores work the same way they do in grocery stores. The space is for rent. And big publishers, owned by bigger (and often foreign) conglomerates have the money to buy the space.
Good riddance. We are seeing a monumental society change right in front of our eyes. I mean, does anyone remember pay phones?? Now it is pro sports, NYC, and hopefully the tyrants at digital media (Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). On October 29 Twitter stock was trading at $52.43. The next day it closed at $41.36. How great. DOWN 21.11%!
By the way, my daughter got out of NYC 2 years ago — thank goodness.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Get woke; go broke.
“I wasn’t searching for any viciously right-wing tracts...”
Well, thank God for THAT!
My daughter's high school best friend (who was born in 1981) went to NYC for college and stayed, living in Manhattan. She recently returned to her parents suburban home. This is a woman born in 1981.
My old college days at NYU (I was on scholarship - I was a blue-collar rube from the sticks). Anyway, with no money in my pocket, I’d while away untold hours at bookstores, libraries, and museums all over the big city.
A bygone world in many ways.
After Fred Bass died, his daughter Nancy, turned the dial up as high as it would go for commercial wokeness. She also made Strand a brand, too. That was her best idea (i.e., every kind of Strand bling). But the wokeness soon eclipsed her father’s business sense, which included coexisting with District 65, a Communist union affiliated with the UAW, which represented Strand employees for years and provided universal health care from its cavernous headquarters on Astor Place (vide https://isreview.org/issue/94/renegade-unionism). Nancy, too, is the wife of OR Senator Ron Wyden, who really just represents Portland and likely doesn’t have much sway in the Big Apple.
What’s the strand? Isn’t that British?
“She recently returned to her parents suburban home. This is a woman born in 1981.”
Many people are fleeing Manhattan. For your daughter’s friend, however, it must seem like something of a defeat to have lived in New York for 20 years and she had to return to mom and dad’s house!
Note to Dorsey -
The first Rasputin had a tough time making his exit.
Yes The Strand is a posh shopping street in London. In this case it is a bookstore in Manhattan.
It’s almost a waste of time to go into B&N anymore. They are 50% or more games, knick-knacks, calendars, stuffed animals, and teen fiction.
When I was 9 or 10 in the late 50s I built many Revell warship models. I always wanted to have a copy of Jane’s. My dad took me on a 15 minute walk one Saturday to The Strand. There was the latest copy of Jane’s. He couldn’t afford to spend money on such a book but a staffer came over and asked me about my interests. He left and returned with a paperback volume of Fahey’s SHIPS AND AIRCRAFT OF THE U. S. FLEET Victory edition. It was 3 bucks. I still have it. I thank my dad, that staffer and The Strand. I am so disappointed to see where it has gone.
She felt didn’t feel safe going outside, and couldn’t go in to work, so why not leave?
I love Used Book Stores. But I don't think I ever bought a single book at The Strand. (My daughter even lived a couple of blocks away for five years or more.) My recollection is that they had zillions of reviewers' copies of the same book on their shelves to pump up the volume. By comparison, there is a little Used Book Shop near Morristown, NJ, where I have purchased dozens of books.
ML/NJ
A friend’s father had several versions of Jane’s, it was fun to go through for sure. This in the late 60s.
The best bookstore here on Long Island is hands down Book Revue in Huntington Village. They have new and used books on everything. My late wife was a Civil War nut, not the battles or politics but the people. We went once to Book Revue to find a book The Vacant Chair. They didn’t have it. The staff and mgr. were totally embarrassed. They called the owner to tell him they didn’t have the book. He asked to speak to my wife. The book would be in by the weekend and she wouldn’t be charged. Now we were good customers but this was above and beyond.
ML/NJ
If I owned a bookstore, I’d steal your line for a slogan.
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