18 Miles of Books

A few mornings ago, I was talking on the phone with a friend and planning an initial excursion into New York City. I've been in Newark for more than a month now, and I decided that it was about time that I went into the City and loafed around for a while. My friend mentioned the Strand: "I see people in D.C. all the time who have Strand tote bags. 16 miles of books! It sounds like your sort of place."

"I thought it was 15 miles of books."

"I'm pretty sure," she said, "that it's 16 miles."

Well, we were both wrong: the Strand has been--and is still--expanding. It's a bookstore I've wanted to go to for a few years; I still can't forgive myself for missing City Lights when I was in San Fran a few years back, and the Strand bags I've seen on-campus at Susquehanna and Bucknell were walking advertisements for this bookstore. When I arrived at the Strand's location, 828 Broadway, near Union Square, I immediately noticed that the number on the Strand's awning, which announces the miles of books in a white sans serif font, offered the verdict on the collection: 18 miles.

Notably, the "8" was slightly translucent and almost masked a "6." I couldn't see if there was another layer underneath that, the possibility of the "6" disguising a "5."

In a time when a lot of bookstores are experiencing troubles and either closing down or catering to electronic market, the Strand stands a testament to the existence of book lovers everywhere. It's more than a tourist attraction: it's four floors of books, containing titles from university presses, indie presses, and mainstream publishers alike. And the Strand handles used and collectible books, as well.

One search I always perform in bookstores is the quick glance for books by my past instructors. The short version: successful on all counts, even academic monographs.

It's difficult to amble through the Strand--the shelves are stacked and leave only narrow walkways between them. There was a girl nestled against the shelves in one of the fiction aisles, and I had the somewhat awkward experience of towering over her on a stepladder as she swaddled herself with a scarf and, cramped in her corner, continued to read despite the hordes kindly elbowing each other for access to the stacks.

But this girl and I were the oddballs in that we were exploring the Strand alone; most of the patrons were accompanied by a friend, a lover, a partner, with whom they investigated the many stacks.

Books may not always be the dominant media for reading. I certainly have no problem with the e-reader revolution (Moby Dick or Ulysses on the Kindle, for instance, is infinitely more portable than their ink-and-paper counterparts), but we still live in the cult of the book: a society in which a tote bag becomes a universal advertisement as easily recognizable as a pair of Mickey Mouse ears. And there's something about the physical object itself that unites people--as friends, as readers.

Don't Shy Away When the Bookbug Bites

So why read. It's a question that I've seen flung around time and again, and particularly--especially in the stodgy academic circles--this has become a question meant to test the resolve, the necessity, of the book.

There are simple answers to "Why read?," which include that the Internet--even with its bevy of webcomics (to which I'm admittedly addicted), YouTube (see comment the previous), and other visual media (Google image search!)--is nonetheless based on words, code, language, and all that stuff. We haven't got to what the Beat novelist William Burroughs had expected: a visual society. You can't think of an image of Big Ben and then have that appear in your image search or as a YouTube video. You have to type "Big Ben" in a search bar and strike enter. (Or click on the "Search" button, but who actually takes the time to drag the mouse point and click--with the notable exception of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail. But it was the '90s. They can be forgiven.)

Words, then, are everywhere, and we're flooded with them. And it's easy to get desensitized in this ocean of language, where things are minimized to quick factoids and reports. So the book...who wants to read after a long day of spending time with words, words, and more words? Why aren't we all singing in time with Eliza Doolittle: "Words, words, I'm sick of words!"?

There's something about books that remind us of what it is to be human. To share something. To connect. And all this talk of the book as just a repository for knowledge...how about as a medium for communicating? I recently came across this NYTimes interview with Charlaine Harris, the author of the book series ported into HBO's True Blood. And some of her answers to the interviewer's questions reminded me of precisely why we read books.

Books make issues personal and connect us to other people. Read the interview, and consider Harris's comments about the sexuality of her characters. Or think about the cult sensation that shows such as True Blood have become. And how these things create conversations. Friends watch the shows and then buy the books and read the books and all the while...they're talking.

So I can't understand why people try to defend the book as some repository of knowledge, some dusty tome that's dry and tedious and dreadfully, dreadfully dull and droll. Let's talk about something that Charlaine Harris apparently knows, that books--regardless of genre, regardless of how intricate or beautifully written--should first and foremost bring people together.

In the words of Stan Lee, "'Nuff said."