As we are well into our third Coronavirus lockdown, people continue to worry about their social lives: how are we meant to get that much-needed variety of people that are required to keep us sane? And while this is an important question, another equally important one (to book-lovers at least) is: but what about our fictional social lives? And in a slightly less selfish vein, what about the livelihood of small booksellers?
As an avid reader, there is something magical about a bookshop (perhaps it’s a cliché, but things only become clichéd if they are true). Sure, you can buy books online or on your kindle, however I know many will agree with me that nothing quite comes close to walking into a room full of books, knowing that you are surrounded by countless stories: what to pick up next, there is limitless potential! The thing is, that in order for those wonderful places to exist, they need custom, which the small independent booksellers will struggle to get during the national lockdown.
In October, French authors, publishers and booksellers begged the French government to consider bookshops an essential service and allow them to stay open, as other European countries, such as Belgium, Germany and Austria, had done. Certain French authors (such as Alexandre Jardin) went so far as to offer to pay any fines small independent bookshops in their areas incurred for staying open.
While this turn of events is far from ideal, there is some good news. If you’re in need of distraction during lockdown (and realistically, who won’t be?), there are other more ethical options than the all-mighty corporate Amazon. The first (still very new, and not yet widely known) option is the ‘revolutionary’ new online Bookshop (https://uk.bookshop.org/), a platform enabling readers to buy books from their local indie bookseller’s virtual shop front. On this note, many booksellers are also taking matters into their own hands and taking orders via email or the phone. So go google their contact details!
Another viable (and sustainable) option to curb the ‘new-book-need’, is buying second-hand from buy-and-sell websites or apps, such as ebay or depop. Unless you’re a hoarder, the plan to buy it, read it and then resell it, will help you prevent the house from getting too cluttered during the time you are stuck at at home.
Although depop is primarily used for second hand clothes, many sellers are offering a service they call ‘blind date a book’, where you can buy an unknown book wrapped in paper, with only three descriptive words to give you a taste of what you might be getting. This new trend follows the book subscription Date Night With a Book, where you are sent an unknown book a month to read, along with a coaster, a bookmark, a tea and hot chocolate; this is a really lovely idea, but for a poor student like me, the trimmings are not essential (or if they are, you can visit Lidl for the budget option), and the regularity of the monthly parcel might not be too much or too little. The second-hand option allows you to buy if-and-when you need your book-fix at a more reasonable price.
Good luck to all during this (hopefully final) lockdown, and to all let me say: good reading!!