Bookstore Morning

In the early hours, the bookstore smells like paper. Before the cafe begins its preparations and before the morning workers spread out amongst the shelves to work. It is as if the workers are invading on the privacy of the books. Day after day, the books have the night alone to recover.

Before the books are moved. Before the pages are ruffled. Those first few minutes in the bookstore are crisp as the pages of the books.

The air is clean.

There are no sounds.

After the store has opened for customers, the entire feeling in the bookstore shifts. The feeling of calm and quiet, the smell of fresh paper is pushed back to make way for the image that the customers know. The air smells like fresh baked cookies. The espresso machine cuts through the quiet. When the front doors unlock, everything changes.

Customers queue at the cafe for coffee then spread out to haunt different areas of the store. The music department begins playing music.

The quiet that greeted me in the morning is gone. The feeling of calm is replaced with disorder. I know that the bookstore is meant to be used, but it seems a shame that its patrons can’t preserve the aura that the store holds in the early hours of the morning.

Death of a Mass Market Novel

I leave the distribution center, boxed up with fellow novels. In the back of a truck-trailer, we make our way along the highways. For days, we wait in anticipation. Some of us are hardcover. Some of us are softcover. No matter what the thickness, each of us is eager to be opened.

Finally, we reach the store. The back of the truck-trailer eases open. I can feel the warmth of the sun seeping in through the cardboard box. A noisy machine eases the box out of the truck. With a thud, the box is placed on cold concrete.

There is chattering. Voices. My pages shiver at the sound of metal slicing across the top of the box. *Please don’t tear me.*  With a snap, the top flaps of the box are pulled back. Warm, fresh air rushes in around my pages. I shudder with excitement.

It is time. A pair of hands reaches in the box and abruptly pulls me and some companions into the open air. It is a warehouse. There are tables, carts, and books everywhere. *Thwap*. The hands slam me onto a table.

Another pair of hands starts to sort us into piles. Some of us are pasted with icons: 20% off, Buy 2 Get 1, etc. I am not labeled, just stacked onto another book. The hands press into my cover and grab me and the books below me. Across the floor we go.

Now I am on a cart. I am being rolled out into a brightly lit room. The room is large! There is music! It smells like cookies!

*Squeak, squeak, squeak.* The cart rolls to a stop in front of a tall structure with shelves. I shift on the cart as books around me are picked up by yet another set of hands and placed onto a shelf. It is my turn. *Clunk.* The metal beneath me is cold. My cover is facing outward, I can not see anything behind be or next to me. In front of me, there is another structure with shelves. Books line those shelves too.

For weeks, I sit on the shelf. Every now and then, someone picks me up… only to set me down again. The Books around me are picked up too but they are then carried away. Where are they going? Then, I am picked up again. Only this time, I leave the shelf. *Clunk.* I am placed onto what looks like a cart.

*Squeak, squeak, squeak.* Again, the cart rolls away from the shelves and back into the warehouse.

I feel cold. Something in the room makes me uncomfortable. There are less books with me this time. *Tear.* Oh my gosh! What is that sound? *Rip.* What is going on? Is everyone ok? *Tear.* I am scared.

A pair of hands picks me up. What is going on? Why is my cover being held so closely to the spine? I feel woozy. *Tear.* Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Where is my cover? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? HELP! HELP! SOMEONE IS DENUDING THE BOOKS!

*Thwap.* Naked and cold, I am thrown into a box under a table. Where are they taking me next? Where ever it is, I do not think it is good because it is a place where I no longer need a cover to identify myself from the other novels.

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Day one of my employment at a major bookstore and I am tearing covers off of unwanted books that are bound for a recycling plant. It is sad, really. As much as I love books, it is heartbreaking to have to send a box of coverless books to their doom.

F-O-X Books

I finally got a new job. It is at a bookstore. Sweet. Though my salary is significantly lower and I am only working part-time, I am happy to be employed. Not to mention stoked to spend 20hrs a week surrounded by books. And the employee discount? Very good indeed. I mean come on. My lower salary blues are easy to alleviate with the purchase of a new fiction at a super low price. Plus, when I stop to think about it, what a great place for a book lover and aspiring writer to work.

Today was my first day training. During the hours of orientation and over-acted training videos, I started to think about You’ve Got Mail. All about books. The 1998 movie, by the way, is a remake of a 1940′s movie called The Shop Around the Corner.

O.M.G., I am F-O-X Books. Participating in the demise of local stores and selling books like over-sized, Costco-brand olive oil. Ah, who cares. I get cheap books with an additional employee discount.

I really do not have much else to say, but I am sure the stories will get more plentiful as my days start to get more exciting.