We recently got excited when a major corporate bookstore chain reopened in our part of L.A., many years after we thought it had vanished from the face of the earth. We used to hate that bookstore chain with all we had. Now we were happy just to have a physical place nearby to browse and look at books.
Anything feels better than shopping through Amazon, whose offenses against Earth and working people are legion, from the reportedly dangerous conditions of its union-fighting warehouses to its alleged facilitation of Department of Homeland Security surveillance to the steep levels of emissions said to be coming from its delivery trucks and the over 400 million pounds of annual plastic waste it purportedly generates.
Fortunately, Los Angeles, despite what its haters say, is a reading town, from its bookworms to its script-readers, one full of great independent and time-honored bookstores that are almost as plentiful as the inspired authors this city has spawned.
Finding the book you want is instant when shopping online. But it’s vastly more fun to visit a bookstore or library and browse your way to your next great read. I’ve read 47 books so far this year and am happy to say that none of them came from Amazon; instead, they were sourced from lending libraries, friends' collections, L.A.'s own public libraries, and small local stores.
If you can’t find a specific book you seek, you’ll likely find it on Bookshop.org, an online retailer that connects users to small U.S. bookshops, some of which are featured below. Bookshop.org, unlike Abe’s Books, is not owned by Amazon but was started to provide an alternative to Bezos’ omnipotence.