Says Larry McMurtry in Business Week, “Neatness
doesn’t count: Customers prefer stacks on the floor to books on the
shelf.” Really? This has made me think of what I’d like in a
bookshop. Piles of books on the floor? No, I’m really not sure. You see, for one thing I would worry about tripping over and getting killed or, worse still, breaking something or, even worse, step on one of the books. (I still have that hang up from childhood, I’m afraid.) Books arranged neatly on the shelf vertically, give me a crick in the neck that can last for days. I prefer them stacked horizontally, which makes it easier to read the spine.
Categorisation and classification helps because I really don’t like to spend hours looking for what I want. So I hate big bookshops: those megastores bore the life out of me, and legs start to hurt. Medium to small is what I like best, say, with 3000 to 5000 titles, several of them, neatly arranged and displayed like the deserts at a deli that you promise yourself even before you order your main meal.
McMurtry says, “Some people don’t like too much order in bookshops and want to feel like they’re finding something. You can have 300,000 books perfectly arranged on the shelf, and every time, people will walk in and want to look at the books stacked up on the floor. So if you really want to sell something, jumble it up and pitch it on the floor.”
I suppose some people do like to pick things off the floor. But for me, the very thought of going through 300,000 books tires me out. I’d prefer to zoom in to the section they have my favourites and skip the rest. I love to browse. Few things give me a high better than book discovery, but I prefer my books to be arranged, though not all in a straight line like policemen on parade. Some creativity would be nice.
The comments are mixed. Some people do like to pick books right out of the boxes, but I prefer some order.
Business Week
