Quote of the Week...from Gardner Dozois

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston.  And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section.

                                                                  ---Gardner Dozois

Gardner Dozois (1947-2018) is probably best-known for his anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction...which I'm currently reading and reviewing (I'm up to the year 1989), as well as being the editor of the acclaimed Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.  He's also written science fiction in both novel and short story form, but his fame has been as the role of a collector and editor of quality stories written by others.  His above quote places him a decade ahead me, but I couldn't tell you very much about bookstores even during the sixties, other than the book and supply store at my public school.  Then again, I tended to go more for libraries in my early youth, and liked those old children's series they sold at my nearby G.C. Murphy like Power Boys and Bobbsey Twins (I read all my sister's Trixie Beldon and Donna Parker books, too).  But sure, once bookstores, both new and used, began sprouting in full force during the seventies, I caught the bug and began buying paperbacks, mostly nonfiction. I picked the above quote because nowadays bookstores sadly seem to be in a state of retreat, both new and used. And for those that are still around, it's funny that now the science fiction section is often the biggest one.  I'm not bemoaning the advancement of digitalized books like Kindle or audiobooks, mind you...I make liberal use of both forms. But I also know that for some reason book publishing...unlike with music or movies/TV...lags far behind in the availability of bygone and out-of-print works for digital reading, while much is unavailable in libraries as well.  Which means you go to a used bookstore to find them...assuming there are any used bookstores.  Gainesville's number has steeply declined in recent years, but we still have a couple of them, along with a crazy used book sale that happens every (pandemic-free) year in April and October.  I'd say take a train to Jacksonville, but you can't do that from Gainesville anymore, either...