Got engrossed in a new book by Yuval Noah Harari, “12 lessons for the 21th century” at B&N. This is the same guy who wrote the wonderful Sapiens and Homo Deus. Nearly parted with 30 dollars in my mind, but then found this book on VKontakte, and, delighted, bought a pastry for five. Last time, we found three books on the art of essay writing there, and bought all three directly from the bookstore on thriftbooks.com for a price five times cheaper (they were used, but it didn’t matter to us). It’s tough being a bookstore these days. I think B&N needs to transform into something fundamentally new in the coming years. Since 2015 their stock has fallen fivefold. Perhaps they need to hold public lectures and educational events in stores. Nowadays, it’s hard to even find a consultant there. Before, there used to be a computer in the center with their in-store search system, now even that’s been removed. What do you think is the future for offline bookstores?
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 