The world's cities with the most bookstores and libraries per capita

Metric of what? As far as I can tell "bookstores per capita" is a pretty good metric to measure bookstores per capita. If this is a good proxy for something else, that I don't know, but it's certainly interesting.

I also recently ordered 12 books in a series from the Barnes and Noble website because they were about 5% cheaper overall than on Amazon.

We are going to run out of stores we can browse, see people, use their bathroom without dirty looks, and a friendly staff.

When I go in there, I think about how they could compete, and can't think of much. I like the stores so much I would consider spending my money on a monthly membership. Yes, like a gym membership. It would have to be reasonable, like $10/month, but I would gladly pay it for the honor of sitting at their tables.

I know I need to buy more books there. I don't understand the individuals who pull 15 books off the shelf, leaves them on the floor, and buys the one book they want on Amazon.(I understand the low income buyer, but not being disrespectful by not putting books back.)

They are putting a lot of toys in the stores. I guess that's a good idea. They have so much potential shelf space, I would like to see used books in their stores. Used technical books would be nice. So many customers would give them their old books.

I feel like I'm writing their obituary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/17...

I think using Google Business Directory, Yelp, Yellow Pages and a few other repositories would give a much better picture, I've checked a few random cities (both on and off their list) and the numbers are considerably higher than what the article describes.

There is also a simply massive Half-Price Books in Dallas on Northwest HWY. It's like an entire city block (single level). Powell's is a sight to behold, but if you ever make it to Big D, their HPB is pretty great.

> I lived there for 5+ years and as an avid reader, it was infuriating

I call bullshit. If you had lived in China for 5+ years, you would know that any book censorship there is in place is limited to only a few anti PRC titles and barely enforced. Can you name one book you weren't able to buy in China because it was censored? I doubt so.

I would too discount the bookstore counts for Hong Kong and China but because their bookstores are typically tiny.

I've got so many great memories of spending time in the bookshop, looking at all the newly published tech books and the venerable classics, deciding what I was going to learn next. Books that had been edited and reviewed, giving such in-depth overviews that you could come away from them saying "I understand this technology".

Recently I've realise how reliant I've become on a mishmash of blog posts, API docs, incomplete/outdated product documentation...

I know that books haven't gone anywhere, but there's something to be said for the discoverability and tangibility of books at the bookstore vs catalog pages on a website.

And ebooks are just not a great experience (currently) when it comes to technical books with diagrams, tables and code examples. They do make for a fantastic complimentary product, however (CTRL-F when I want to quickly look up something I've already read).

There are lots of little neighborhood bookshops in the heartlands, and also plenty of big ones like Kinokuniya, MPH, Page One in the big malls, and there was previously a huge Borders too.

The quality is a whole other issue, but for mass market stuff it's as good as anywhere.