bookstores in an attention economy

S. and I had a late lunch at Olive Garden yesterday--we were on our way to Panera but since Olive Garden was closer and we were lazy, we went there. Afterwards, we went to Barnes and Noble, which is in the same plaza. My stated purpose in going there was to pick up a birthday card. An hour later, I'd spent about $30, S. about $40, and I was completely exhausted. Anyone who knows me knows I don't do well with an overload of sensory information, and the older I get, the worse it seems to be. Shopping exhausts me. There's too much to look at. And I've sort of come to terms with that. But it depresses me that a bookstore exhausts me. Every time I turned around there was yet another table of "paperback favorites" (whose favorites?) that I felt compelled to look at. And on every prime spot of real estate in the store was Chris Bohjalian's new book, The Double Bind. Imagine the money the publisher was spending to have that book continually in the faces of B&N customers.

Anyway, the point of this entry is to say that I can remember a time when I thought it was possible to read all of the good books I wanted to read. I used to think that browsing a bookstore would always be a pleasure because I'd always have all the time in the world to read read read. Yesterday it suddently hit me that that's just not true. I know, big deep and meaningful insight. I've got real problems, I know. Criminy.

There's a stack of at least 10 "fun" books on the end table next to my couch. And I added one to it yesterday. And I still want to browse the bookstores. But I want that browsing to not result in paralysis.

What I'm reading currently: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

In the stack: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Gerald Clarke, Capote
Marilyn Johnson, The Dead Beat (on obituaries)
Tom Perrotta, Joe College
Vivian Gornick, Approaching Eye Level
Curtis White, The Middle Mind and The Spirit of Disobedience
Sy Montgomery, The Good Good Pig
Temple Grandin, Animals in Translation
Editors of Bark Magazine, Dog is My Co-Pilot
Jackson Tippett McCrae, The Bark of the Dogwood