Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the word “Zoom” meant nothing more to me than the name of an old kids’ show on public television or the punchline of a commercial for fast cars. “Google Hangouts” sounded like something only teenagers needed to know about, and “Microsoft Teams,” if I had to guess, was some kind of technical support department requiring an hour on hold to reach.
I am someone who would prefer to spend no amount of time in front of a screen but in fact spend nearly all my time in front of a screen. I am interested in teleconferencing software in the same way and to the same degree that I am interested in TikTok. Which is to say that I’m very happy for to be interested in such things. But another reason to be online myself? No thank you very much.
Then the coronavirus gave me many more reasons to be online. I was still in the midst of travelling to support my first book when bookstores went into quarantine and book festivals were called off altogether. Back in the spring, all my scheduled talks were cancelled. By fall, such events had moved online, and I had to learn what “Zoom” actually means in the 21st century.
It hasn’t been all bad. The pandemic quarantines made it possible for author events to happen anywhere because they were actually happening nowhere.
I got to see the fabulous jungle scene emblazoned on Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s wall when we talked about her breathtaking new essay collection, “World of Wonders,” for Parnassus Books. I got to sit down with Helen Macdonald to talk about her own stunning new essay collection, “Vesper Flights.” The conversation was a benefit for Humanities Tennessee, a non-profit that is very near and dear to my heart though not at all near to Britain, where Ms. Macdonald lives. I have loved Helen Macdonald’s and Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s books for years, but I finally got to meet them only because of Zoom.
2020: A year of virtual events
Virtual events are not without their challenges. At a Southern Festival of Books session with the novelists Lee Smith, author of “Blue Marlin,” and Jill McCorkle, author of “Hieroglyphics,” I was online in Tennessee, Ms. McCorkle was online in North Carolina and Ms. Smith’s digital image was breaking up in Maine. A nor’easter knocked out her Wi-Fi connection just before the event began, so Ms. McCorkle ended up calling Ms. Smith on her cell phone to continue the conversation in a different disembodied form.
But the greatest challenge to online book tours has not been the inevitable glitches of an unfamiliar and not entirely reliable technology. The greatest challenge has been to the survival of bookstores themselves.
A retail bookseller’s bread and butter are live events. The chance to meet a favourite author in real life is one of the crucial differences between a neighbourhood bookshop and the online colossus that must not be named. When readers come out to hear an author talk, they tend to leave the store with a new book signed just for them. With any luck, they also leave with a stack of other books from the store’s beautifully curated tables and shelves — and often with a souvenir coffee mug or tote bag to boot.
None of that can happen when author tours are cancelled or moved online, which explains in part why bookstores have been particularly hard hit this year, despite the fact that book sales are up over all. According to the American Booksellers Association, at least one independent bookstore has closed every single week during the coronavirus pandemic.
To add insult to mortal injury, the survivors are looking at a deeply troubled holiday shopping season. Mail orders, which have surged during the quarantines, now face significant delivery delays as shipping speeds drop with increased online orders across the retail landscape. Many stores are open to foot traffic but are operating under strict municipal or state orders that severely limit the number of customers who can be in the store at one time — not the ideal scenario in a shopping season that can make or break the entire fiscal year.
The ultimate gift item
Books remain the ultimate gift: easy to wrap, available in such a multifarious array that there’s truly something for everyone and, best of all, a desperately needed break from screens in the age of TikTok and Zoom. A book does not beep at you, spy on you, sell you out to marketers, interrupt with breaking news, suck you into a doomscrolling vortex, cease to function in a nor’easter, flood your eyes with melatonin-suppressing blue light or otherwise interrupt your already troubled sleep. That’s why my best beloveds are all getting books for Christmas. Who wouldn’t want such benefits for the people they love best in all the world?
Once upon a time, at the end of a harrowing year, a way to be a storybook hero presented itself to ordinary mortals in the midst of a dangerous shopping season: Buy books.
Call your local bookshop — or check the store’s website — and order books for everyone on your list. Then pick up your order kerbside and head home with a feeling of peace and accomplishment, and the knowledge that you’ve helped to make the world a better place without endangering yourself or anyone else. Because the only way for bookstores to survive is for people to find a way to shop there, even as the coronavirus continues to surge.
As Lisa Lucas, the departing director of the National Book Foundation, said at this year’s virtual ceremony for the National Book Awards, “I’m just a girl, standing here in a ball gown and a pair of Crocs, in a library, asking you to love books with money.” If I had a ball gown, I’d make the same plea, but I’d make it in my own neighbourhood bookshop, Parnassus Books, surrounded by wagging shop dogs and the brilliant booksellers who always know what I need to be reading, even before I know it myself.
— Margaret Renkl is an opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South
The New York Times
