Literary Spontaneity

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Ed Delaney. I’m calling from Nobleville, Indiana.

Hey, Ed. Welcome to the show.

Nobleville, Indiana?

Nobles.

Yes.

Noblesville.

Yeah, just north of Indianapolis.

Yeah.

All right. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Well, I was ordering some books online, and I got to the website and I found my book, and I noticed that on the website they had things like, you know, people that ordered this book also looked at this book and stuff like that.

But what had occurred to me was that when I go to a library or a bookstore and I go look for a book, I go to the shelf and I pull the book out or maybe the book’s not there.

And the first thing I do then is look up and down the shelf to see what other books are physically near the book I’m looking for because a lot of times I discover really cool stuff.

And somebody took the time to organize the books that way, but there’s no similar thing online.

You can only get, you know, recommendations at other people or other things by the Alka, but I lose that.

So I was really kind of missing that.

And I guess my question really was, does anybody else feel that way, that you miss the ability to kind of find things, you know, exciting, interesting things just because they’re physically near the book you were looking for on a shelf?

Oh, yeah.

The Internet’s sort of a mixed blessing that way, isn’t it?

I mean, there’s something so different about being in a library and maybe going to a section of shelves that you never go to.

And it feels like going into a different world, doesn’t it?

Yeah, online serendipity is a lot more tightly controlled.

And sometimes I don’t want them to use my previous purchases as a guide.

I do want them to throw me for a loop.

And I don’t want the top bestsellers either.

And I don’t want this week’s picks.

I want some really great book from the last 20 years that maybe I hadn’t thought of.

If somebody went through the trouble of cataloging books so that they would be in a particular order in the shelf, but whatever methodology they use to decide where a book should go, there’s no online analog to that.

You’re right.

You’re right.

And there’s also not an online analog exactly to judging a book by its spine.

Right.

There’s something about that, about the design of the spine that sometimes catches your eye, right?

Yeah, I feel like even in some of these apps where they’ve made these fake-looking bookshelf interfaces that show the covers of the books, I feel like that’s not enough either.

It’s not the same.

And I think part of it is, particularly in a used bookstore, I’m more likely to look at a well-worn book.

My impression is that somebody loved this book or read it.

It’s been read many times.

I’m far less likely to look at a brand new book because I don’t care about the quality of the cover.

I care about how good it is.

And you want the signs that somebody else has been there.

Right.

I also like that if I’m interested enough in a topic to be here looking at this book, there’s obviously a whole lot of other people that looked at the same topic and thought about it enough to write another book about it.

Right.

And I wouldn’t have discovered them any other way.

Right.

We are fortunate here in San Diego to have several really good independent bookstores as well as some chain stores.

How are things in Noblesville?

Can you get to the bookstores and do a little bit of this to satisfy yourself?

There are some good bookstores here.

I’m always sad when I see a bookstore close, but there’s some good used bookstores.

We still have some of the big chain bookstores, too.

But I have to schedule my time carefully because it’s always like a day operation.

If I walk into a used bookstore, I have to make sure that I got the day clear because I’m not coming out for three or four hours.

It’s a black hole, yeah.

I’m not just going to pop into a bookstore.

It doesn’t matter.

Yeah, my wife always teases me because I’m the guy that goes to the library bookstore where they sell the books that have been withdrawn from circulation.

And she’s like, you’re the only person I know who goes to the library to buy books.

I’m like, well, they’re only 50 cents.

Yep, yep.

Well, Ed, I’m betting that you touched a chord, and we’re going to hear from a lot of people about how they feel about this.

How do you feel about stochasticity, about discovering books on the shelves by random as opposed to looking online?

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Ed, thank you so much.

Thanks, Ed. Good question.

Take care, guys.

Take care.

Bye.

Okay, happy browsing.

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