DEATH OF BOOKSTORES

I still remember the way I felt the first time I went to a book fair. It was so huge, so

overwhelming, and so beautiful that I still manage to sneak this little story into almost every

conversation about books. My dad had taken me and my sister there. I skimmed through

every bookshelf, every stand, every stall scattered across the enormous garden. There were

hundreds of them. I left with arms full of books, my heart brimming with joy. One of those

books I bought that day is, in fact, the reason I am where I am in my life right now.

Another memory comes from a family trip, years ago, when we had five hours to spare in a

city we barely knew. We ended up in a mall, aimlessly passing time, until we stumbled upon a

vast bookstore tucked away in a corner. Right next to it was a little café. My sister and I

found a spot, and in those hours, we managed to finish two books each. That bookstore was

the most surprising discovery I’ve ever had, and honestly, I think that was me at my happiest.

There is something intoxicating about the thrill of walking through aisles of books, brushing

your fingers across spines, and finally picking one up simply because it caught your eye. To

sit down with it, to get lost in a world you never expected to enter, that is an experience no

algorithm can replicate.

But as the world developed and I grew older, bookstores became more of an occasional

indulgence than a constant companion. I still try, whenever I can, to find a cute bookstore and

a quiet corner table and spend the entire day reading a comfort book.

I chase that feeling, but most of the time I fail. Online shopping has taken over, and my

Instagram algorithm now knows me better than I know myself. I follow its nudges

automatically, almost unconsciously. What I’m reading today is rarely the result of chance; it

is what Instagram decided I should read. Recommendations arrive pre-digested, pre-

approved, pre-packaged. The element of surprise has vanished.

And I miss it. I miss the process of searching, of finding, of owning a book and discovering it

page by page. I miss the thrill of walking through my school library, the excitement of

carrying a book home for the week, hoping to win the prize for “most books read”, a prize I

never won, but that did not put me down. I even miss the guilt of those two books I borrowed

and never returned. What I really miss, though, is slow browsing: the aimless wandering, the

deliberate openness to stumble upon a book I didn’t know I needed.

Now, I simply click “buy now.” I track my reading progress on Goodreads. It is efficient,

convenient, frictionless. But sometimes I wonder if this is what true detachment looks like,

not getting lost in fiction, but getting cut off from the very world of books themselves.

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