Literary ghosts and losing an acre

Acres of Books in Long Beach is closing.

Dad's been dragging me down there since I was a kid. I even have a sweatshirt, somewhere, that says Acres of Books on it. And for a kid who loved books, being able to get lost in an acre of them was priceless.

The historical building the bookstore's housed in is going to be recommissioned as housing and art galleries. Apparently the literary no longer constitutes art. While we won't drown in bitterness here, I'll still quote Ray Bradbury, who might've said it best:

It is a watering hole, a grand place to prowl on rainy days, to open books never seen before and probably never to be seen again, as the rain chatters on the high tin roofs, and you get that old wondrous time-spell feeling of hoping that when you turn the next stack you'll meet a lion with a pride of hunters soon behind...

The dust is waiting like an Orient spice. The literary ghosts are waiting like the friends you always wanted and now at last find. The winding corridors promise you to be forever going on a journey and forever lost. Bring your flashlight for late in the day. Ask for me. Tut's in there somewhere. Inquire. He'll tell you where I am.

I found my omnibus edition of the first three Young Wizards books there. On my last visit, I had to try really hard not to decimate the King Arthur section. And on my bookshelves at home, there's still a copy of War and Peace that Dad inscribed to me, saying that he'd always buy any book I wanted. (Yes, I wanted and read War and Peace.)

America's downfall isn't in its media and its commercialism and its carbon-obsession and whatever else. The downfall is in its fading belief in magic, its disregard of written treasures, its falling out of love with books. It's the loss of bookstores like this one, one acre at a time.