SUNDAY SALON - The Merit (and Appeal) of Chain Bookstores

I know many of you check in from North America, so this may surprise you: in Australia, we have recently suffered a loss. The major brand of large chain bookstores on our shores has definitively closed.

Of course we still have our smaller independent bookstores, and a local chain called Dymocks, which boasts a limited number of larger stores that host an onsite cafe. But gone are the days when a visit to the mall as a matter of course included a lengthy browse in a big bookshop, or when the natural meeting place for friends and family alike was the cafe in Borders.

Don't get me wrong, I have always been a proponent of indie bookstores. I make a deliberate effort to head out to my favourite neighbourhood stores to purchase certain choice books, and to ensure that my book money is spread evenly across platforms - so that any given month might include Amazon purchases of both hard copy and e-books, big chain store purchases (once upon a time) and smaller independent and used-book store purchases.

I have favourite independent bookstores all over Sydney, which is my current hometown: Gleebooks in the inner West, Berkelouw and Ariel books on Oxford Street, Banjobooks in Epping, Oscar & Friends booksellers in both Surry Hills and Double Bay, Lesley McKay's in Woollahra. Then of course there are fabulous used bookstores, including another branch of Gleebooks, Ampersand on Oxford, Gertrude and Alice in Bondi and my beloved T's bookshop in Randwick. I will make special trips, depending on where I am, to seek out these shops and browse in them, taking the time for a coffee where that is a possibility. I seek out unique bookstores when I am traveling too, interstate or overseas, and love nothing more than to find a resident cat in a New York city store, or a complimentary plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies in a Seattle neighbourhood.

But. But but but. Forgive me, hardcore indie fans, but there is still something special about walking into one of those large North American style stores, veritable cathedrals of books that they are.

As you know, we are traveling at the moment, and on our first day in Toronto, when my mum asked me what I wanted to do, my first thought was "Chapters! Or Indigo!" - naming the large bookstores dotted all around the city, making a trip to these a priority.

And when I walked in that first evening I had time for a proper browse, snatching a few delightful moments on my own as Bibliohubby babysat little Ignatius, I breathed in deep. Ah, that intoxicating smell of paper and coffee and commercialism - pathetic, I know, but it almost made me tear up. Places like this make me feel safe, I suppose, as though the continued existence of large bookstores means that books themselves will also continue to exist.

Three massive floors of books! In such beautifully wrought surrounds. In a store that stays open until 10 or 11 at night, every night, with a bustling inhouse cafe, with proper espresso coffee and plush seats to sink into and read once you've found your pile of 'maybe' books.

Of course, I am not delusional. I can see that these stores are capitalising on suckers like me, and that they make additional coin by delectably displaying other items book fiends might desire. I bought a pair of socks marketed as 'Reading Socks' a few years back from a large Toronto city store, and felt peculiarly bonded to them even though - really - they were just normal woolly socks (a 'marketers' dream', Bibliohubby calls me, and he's not wrong).

This trip has had me pause repeatedly at the table devoted in every Chapters store to gorgeous journals. And, allow me to digress here: I am a ridiculous addict of journals. I have far, far more than I will ever need. I have a whole shelf in my study at home devoted to journals and notebooks collected over the years - some are ornate, with carved covers and fancy bound spines, others are simple and practical, like my ever-growing collection of Moleskines in a variety of colours and sizes. I am never without a journal and a pen in my handbag, just as I am never without a book.

And yet! And yet I find it hard to bypass this table that is so beautifully set out with journals without wanting to buy each and every one of them. Rationally, I understand that all of them contain the same thing: lined paper. But this does not dilute my desire. There is now a series of gorgeous leather-bound journals that simply say 'Journal' on the cover, and they come in the most satisfying shades - lemon, mauve, mint, turquoise, rose. I want them all! Even now, as I write this, I find myself regretting that I didn't succumb to my weakness and purchase one of these beauties. And then there are the more ornate notebooks, etched with gold thread (or similar), imprinted with the words of ancient texts, with covers carved out of rare wood. And then still others, with more ordinary covers but calling out to be filled. Journals entitled variously: "Insomnia - a dedicated place to record the thoughts racing in your head when you wake up in the middle of the night" (I could use that, I think to myself excitedly!); "Listmania - keep a list of things you will do in the future" (Essential! methinks); "A line a day - one line each day for the next five years" (So simple! I think, knowing that this would solve the diarist's problem of consistency; one line a day is surely feasible).

Of course I could easily keep track of any of these things in my existing journals. The covers of these new ones do not alter the plain blank pages within or the potential content that might one day fill those pages. But still. I want these journals, I want them all.

Anyway - back to books. I find different things in big bookstores than I do in smaller ones. Indie bookstores are my source for new, as-yet relatively unknown debut novels, gems tucked away to be discovered by the likes of me - sometimes even a goldmine of signed editions from an author reading. In used bookstores I have come across first or second editions. In larger stores I often find new editions of books I have read before, these days with those lovely rough cut pages and velvety covers. It's awful, but I am such a collector that if I really love a book, I have no moral problem buying a new copy of it with a different cover. And as I increase my intake of e-books, I find that I now have the luxury, if I read a book electronically and adore it, of heading out with the specific task of finding the most attractive hard copy of it to sit on my shelves.

Does the existence of these large bookstores really so endanger the existence of independent booksellers that we need to decide in favour of one or the other? Are books selling so poorly these days that it is impossible in one city for both to exist? I know the closure of Borders in Australia was a far more complicated issue, involving alleged mis-management and so on and so forth, but what I am talking about is broader. When I was studying for my MA it was considered grievous for any English postgraduate student to enter into one of these large bookshops. Support independents! went the slogan, and I did. But that didn't stop me from also occasionally slinking into a larger store when there was snow on the ground and Chapters had a nice fire going and coffee brewing...

I suppose I am hopeful, really, that bookshops of all sizes and kinds might survive. Yes, I know that even Chapters and Indigo are suffering. I know that I am probably dreaming. But while they still exist, should we not savour the joys offered by all of these unusual places, that offer books but also a place to read, a place to meet, a place to drink coffee and to talk about literature? A bookshop in a city, for me, is like an oasis: a well of peace in the urban sprawl. I guess this is my church we're talking about. And I don't think we should feel guilt for entering into a church of our denomination, even if it is owned by a corporate giant rather than a ma-and-pa enterprise.

Where do you shop for books? Do you think there is a place for large chain bookstores as well as smaller, charismatic indie bookshops?