The other day I was remembering a great bookstore in St. Paul (in “
Peacable Nature”). Today Brigitte discovered that the store had closed its doors in 2004 already after operating for thirty-four years. When we left the Twin Cities in 1989, that store was then still called, as it had originally been called, The Hungry Mind, but its owner-founder Dave Unowsky had sold that name to somebody and renamed his store Ruminator Books. Selling that name was one attempt to keep the place afloat. The story of the store is
here, and worth reading by chroniclers of the never-ending saga of books. This is but a temporary bump in the road, I maintain. Books, and stores like The Hungry Mind, shall never entirely vanish, but we must cross the Desert of E before the great times dawn once again …
In the NYT Letters-to-the-Editor section today, I read the very best reason for preferring print books: Ms. Robbins, Managing Editor of Publishers Weekly, writes that: "... a paper book never needs to be recharged, and it won't break if it falls on the floor..." and I will add that a heavy book often serves as a door stop
ReplyDeletein my office. Multi-purposing at its best!
Oh, I think ignorance would have been bliss in this case... not knowing that our beloved Hungry Mind Bookstore had perished in the early 2000s independent book store epidemic (or turn of the century independent book stores die off).
ReplyDeleteBut, it will live on in the realm of thought—which is most appropriate really—for many, even we who were its active supporters for only a few years.
By the way, I love your image of crossing the Desert of E. Nice.