Paul Auster Can't Buy Them All

Bad news from Brownstoner on everybody's fave lefty Brooklyn nabe. Park Slope, which recently lost indy bookseller 7th Avenue Books, and lives in fear of the death of the iconic Community Bookstore, will this spring have to do without Park Slope Books.

I'm never happy to report on the closure of any independent book store, but this news begs a question which I've often asked myself about the Slope: Is it really a literary neighborhood, or just an affluent enclave of run-of-the-mill yuppies that like to think of itself as literary? If it were really as well-read and book-happy as it's repped to be, well, it would have no trouble supporting a few booksellers, wouldn't it? And yet, over ten years or so, I've seen Slope book stores come and go with some speed. Last Exit Books, a fine used book store on Sixth Avenue, comes to mind in particular. It can't all be the fault of that one Barnes & Noble.