Also, it should host Trampoline Hall-type events (you guys would love Trampoline Hall, a monthly series of curated lectures where people speak about things that they are not experts-in). And maybe there are some computers around too. But definitely the main area is full of chairs and tables that are easily reconfigured. And reading here is free but there is a coffee shop and POD and digital downloads if you want to read the rest later (of course you do).

Or bumperstickers. “My other Kindle has Proust” whatever.

Have I talked about the This is Not a Reading Series series here? It’s book events except that it’s not readings. It’s panel discussions or debates or performances all related to the books but interesting as separate events in their own right. Indeed, the book store they were attached to has shut down, but the event lives on.

To repeat my main point from that post: one of the exciting things about the Nook is that it envisions a future for the bookstore where e-book and brick-and-mortar work sympathetically.

But you’re right — B&N needs to use/adapt its existing stores. Some kind of new cyberbookstore could reinvent this entirely.

OR: some kind of new, high-end anti-digital booksellers, with lots of wood paneling, art books, expensive stationery, personalized leather covers. The return of the bookplate! Maybe you’re a member, and you go there to read and smoke a pipe. You don’t wait on line for coffee — someone brings coffee to you. Or a basil gimlet.

First of all, I just love this line: “The key point seems to be that book­store patrons today are kind of like the Repub­li­can Party — almost every­one who hasn’t given up on the project alto­gether is a zealot.”

Second, this would be a fun brainstorm/contest: What’s an altogether new vision for a bookstore? I say “vision” specifically b/c I feel like I want a rendering; I want to see what it looks like. And I have a feeling that one key difference is that the majority of the floor space is not taken up by books anymore.

Say there’s a small, focused selection of pre-printed stuff, a) so you can browse but really b) for the color and texture. The aesthetics of stacked books. But most of what you buy is print-on-demand a la Doctorow. A bank of bright POD book-machines whirring away. You get a coffee while your book prints.

But what else? Maybe a really good bookstore becomes known as THE venue for smart lectures & presentations. (And NOT just book readings/signings, which hold the title of Lamest of All Live Events.) They’re uniquely poised to do events b/c the psychographic is right: smart, curious people who want to sit in a room with other smart, curious people.

And what else?