Chris Powers writes on the Guardian book blog about the demise of the independent bookstore, and wonders about the literary scenes of tomorrow (he cites as past examples the City Lights store in Calfornia and Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris where, in the photo, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein are amiably chatting). However, as sad as it is, a number of these venerable bookstores are going out of business, and the next wave of literary scenes will revolve not around bookstores (or even one geographical location, such as Paris in the'20s), but these scenes will instead revolve around online, virtual locations such as websites, blogs and wikis. The Internet has flattened the world to such a degree that a writer no longer needs to hitch a ride across the country to go "on the road"; they can instead explore the world from their laptop. Nor do they need to frequent a physical place in order to meet other writers; instead writers get together in chatrooms, message boards and the comments sections of litblogs (not mention in Second Life). Whether or not this will make them better or worse writers than the Beats or whoever will remain to be seen, but there can be no arguing that the era of the bookstore as the center (or creator) of literary scenes in over, and the dominance of the Internet has arrived.
From the blog: “The question that arises now is whether today's crop of independent bookshops - Bloomsbury's the London Review Bookshop, say, or St Mark's in New York's East Village - can become nests for new literary schools. Do cyberspace's virtual communities obviate the need for a bricks and mortar space to meet, read and exhange ideas? Or, as with books themselves, is their physical presence still an essential part of the process?”
From Matt: The scriptwriters made quite a few changes from the book, but they were all for the best - and booklover though I am I have to admit that its better to see magic than to read about it.
From Mina: I adore this film. Monsieur Hulot’s very modern sister and brother-in-law don’t know what to do with Tati’s charmingly untidy and bungling protagonist, who inhabits a world where meaning is still more important than appearances.
From Carey: A must see Hayao Miyazaki’s anime is Laputa: Castle in the Sky, originally released in 1986. A fantasy film that explores the altruistic and compassionate nature of humans, aspects lost through repeated exposure to power, technology, and the complexities brought by the combination of the two. 
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Posted by: gnjqpru vdicboenm | February 26, 2009 at 06:25 AM
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Posted by: SEO Los Angeles | November 13, 2009 at 12:03 AM
I think you are right. The bookstore as we know it will be obsolete. It's so easy to browse on line and find what you need.
Posted by: Jonathan | December 06, 2009 at 11:53 AM
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Posted by: Small Business SEO | September 03, 2011 at 02:03 AM