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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-23 9:48 PM (#12468 - in reply to #12239)
Subject: Re: Pick and Mix 2016		Quote Reply



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Location: UK		Amazon want to rule the world as far as any book related site is concerned. In the UK there is only one major chain of bookshops left,Waterstones. In the second hand area they snapped up AbeBooks ,and it was sad to hear in 2011 that the Book Depository had also been gobbled up. As a result, independent booksellers were unable to compete,and are closing down at more than one a week!. You very rarely see a book shop over here nowadays .I live near a medium sized city,Sunderland.,pop.275,000.,It has one Waterstones branch,very small, selling mainly bestsellers,one W H Smith stationers branch,and NO secondhand bookshops at all! And this is a university city!
We had the most marvellous second hand bookshop near the city centre beside the university campus.Masses of textbooks,boxes of dusty old books tucked away everywhere which often turned up hidden delights(that was way I took on my username,getting grimy hands rooting out intriguing boxes of books),and having that distinctive smell of old books.Genre fans would be happily searching the packed shelves for the next crime or romance,teenagers would be poring over the display cabinets of badges and buttons,or the posters of old films.Imagine the horror when the place suddenly announced it was closing down to become a winebar! All very sad.....wonder if Alibris are nervously peering over their shoulder to see if they are being stalked!Maybe not,being owned by a billionaire,they are very similar to Amazon. lol.
Oh and one more depressing thing about Amazon. On UK sales of 4 billion,they paid a princely ELEVEN MILLION in tax.Our book buying culture is being destroyed,and we dont even make any cash from it for our beleaguered public services .

Edited by dustydigger 2016-01-23 9:54 PM

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