Monday 18 April 2011

Waterstone's: even more stationary?

A quick post before bedtime, about my favourite chain of bookstores, which is starting to fall from grace and might end up in cultural Hell, in my eyes at least. I got this email from Waterstone's tonight, titled: "A New Chapter: Even more stationary, gifts and joyous things". Is it what a bookstore really need? Even more stationary? Don't we have other places to buy stationary? I don't go to a bookshop to buy stationary, I go to a bookshop to buy books! Bestsellers, old classics, forgotten classics, relatively unknown stuff, totally unknown stuff, I expect the place to have a variety of books! I might buy the odd pen or handbook here and there, but I go there for the books. I don't want Waterstone's franchises to be like W.H. Smith's, glorified convenience stores. And I know they have it rough with online shops pumping their clients and everything. But still, selling books is more exciting than selling stationary.

2 comments:

Cynthia said...

I guess it means that people do not read anymore which is really sad but I don't know what you can do about it!

quedula said...

I agree. I like Stationers and Bookshops both but they need to be kept separate.