I am a quasi-Luddite.  That, I think, is what my physical therapist admired about me.  “Love the quasi,” she said as she urged me to contort my limbs. I disapprove of cell phones; hence I am a quasi-Luddite. 

The “quasi” is difficult for bibliophiles now, but there were difficult times in the twentieth century, too. During the 1990s, when independent bookstores were crashing like dominoes, booksellers claimed that it was the fall of the book, period.  Borders, the extraordinary bookstore that changed the face of bookselling, was bigger, and I am sorry to say, better than most of the  indies.  Borders closed in 2011, and that was almost the end of bookstores where I live.

But bookstores and book events have long been difficult to navigate.  Here are examples of a typical 20th-century experience.

The 1980s.  The man behind the desk refuses to sell me a copy of Midnight’s Children.  He says I WILL NOT LIKE IT.  Perhaps he thought I was too white-bread.  I bought it at a friendly bookstore, where I shopped loyally for the rest of the decade. 

The  1990s.  At a literary festival, a writer who was beautiful as the dawn gossiped about a writer who sounded very nasty. Since I am a straight talker, too, I was amused and actually relieved that someone else said whatever was on her mind. ALL of us bought her book.

The 2000s. The pandemic ruined many bookstores, because most bibliophiles were terrified or locked down, or both. But do read Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an ex-con bookseller who works in Louise’s own bookstore during the Covid area.

Of course we need physical bookstores, but I became quasi-quasi during the pandemic. I miss those quasi-Luddite days! Still, there are small bookstores all over the midwest, if you like to drive.