On the entire west and north side of the river, am not aware of one Borders, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, or anything. That's sad. :'( I think that is the most telling thing about Jacksonville. :P Unless everyone here secretly uses Amazon ::) , my guess is that the population on this side of the river does not read and that is sad. What gives ???
The major bookstore chains are struggling big time and with this economy, they will probably close more stores then they'll open. However, Chamblin's Uptown, on Laura Street, is a decent alternative.
There is a couple of good places in Fernandina Beach also
That's an interesting point. I never thought about like that. Are you sure there aren't any Mom & Pop bookstores on the westside? As for the chain bookstores...I honestly don't know what to say. That is a really interesting observation. I know the library on Edgewood by Lem Turner was always pretty busy when I went in there.
Westsiders use Books-a-million Orange Park and Chamblins on 17. Northsiders only have the JIA bookstore.
Or Chamblin's downtown....
I read three books a week, mostly from the downtown library or brentwood. If they don't have the book I want, or I can't get it sent over from another library I will breakdown and buy it from Amazon. Perhaps us "northsiders and westsiders" just aren't as willing to drive as much? After all I can walk to either library, and there are quite a few around here, so I save gas and money on purchases :o
I think the advent of the Internet has put a crimp in the style of a lot of industries; i.e., US Mail, and bookstores (for information sources) especially, because so much is available at our fingertips, and we don't even have to leave home. Words (and spelling) can be looked up. Recipes are available. YouTube offers an abundance of resources...all...at the click of a mouse. The ONLY thing I can think of that would keep a book store in business, would be novels...and that's stretching it. Businesses are profit oriented, and novels (alone) won't cut it. Newspapers have been particularly impacted. Remember (20 years ago) when a Sunday newspaper was huge? Now, it can be rolled up and put in your back pocket.
Another industry hurt (not by the Internet) but by change is the photographic area. Small digital cameras that can be purchased at Wal-Mart, have made specialty stores all but extinct. When's the last time you had a roll of film developed? You used to leave a roll on thursday and get pictures back by saturday/sunday. Now, it's takes 10 days. Everything is uploaded to computers and printed at home.
Are we getting better? No; not at the cost of putting people out of business; especially those too old to look for and/or be trained to do something different. I'm glad I'm 61; the "show" is almost over for me, so I just take one (1) day at a time.
There's an unfortunate bias in Jax against the Westside and Northside; the question exhibits the bias, I think. And I don't exempt myself. Growing up in Orange Park, I always wondered why some folks linked O.P. with the Westside. Orange Park was "south," fool, what the heck are you talking about. Hell, I didn't link Riverside, Avondale and Ortega with with the Westside. Like O.P., they were on the river. That wasn't the Westside.
Whatever.
As for reading, I stumbled this week on an interesting write-up about Virginia Woolf that included this Woolf quote:
"A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living."
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/20/the-humane-art-virginia-woolf/
In some ways, I can roll with that quote but in other ways -- no.
Woolf was lamenting the death of letter writing (the humane art) in an era -- the 1930s and 40s -- of change. Words and writing and reading were staring into the face of emerging forms of media assaulting, and completely changing, the known world. The old guard was very wary of the coming change.
Sound familiar?
Shekfu, yes: they read on the Westside and the Northside. But we live in interesting times and everything (it seems) is in flux. Old presumptions no longer apply and old profiles are no longer valid. As I asked a commenter a while back in another thread who, IMHO, was harking back to the old canard that Jacksonville is nothing but South Georgia: ya got it backwards; [1] South Georgia is nothing but North Florida and, anyway, [2] what the hell is wrong with South Georgia, hmmm ?
Change is a given; our only lasting option is to deal with it, even if our primary act of engagement is maintaining standards in the face of that inevitable change.
Whatever happened to going to the library? You could go and get your books for free, and return them and check out more books. Just take a look at the map and look at the number of libraries on the Northside and Westside compared to the rest of town.
(http://jpl.coj.net/pics/libmap2.jpg)
And the key - http://jpl.coj.net/lib/libmap.html (http://jpl.coj.net/lib/libmap.html)
Our public library system has a ton of electronic options as well. All you need is a library card to use these services - http://jpl.coj.net/res/dlmedia.html (http://jpl.coj.net/res/dlmedia.html).
What do you need a bookstore for when you have Amazon or Google, who has scanned in most of the books and many are available for FREE online? Just get an electronic device. Your assumption that no one reads is laughable.