Bookstores are Places of Encounter

Chapter 1: The Joy of Bookstores (5)

Another common analogy is that "books are people." In the most famous science fiction work set in a near-future where the possession of books is prohibited, the protagonist, Montag, says the following:

"(...) That was when I realized that behind every book, there is always a human being. To write a book, one must think. It takes a long time to write down what one has thought. But until now, I had never thought about that at all."

Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451 [New Translation Edition]" (Hayakawa Publishing, 2014), p. 88

Books always have people behind them—the authors, editors, and others who created them. If the book is a story, there are characters within it. And somewhere in the world, there are other readers who are reading the same book. In any book, you can see the existence of various people beyond the pages.

When you find yourself in an environment where there are few people you can talk to or understand, books become your teachers and your friends. Within books, there are people of all types from every country; you can meet not only the living but also those who have passed away. You imagine the creators and other readers, wondering what kind of person made this book or what someone else who read it might have thought. There is nothing that allows you to meet such a diverse range of people as easily and at your own pace as books.

That is why a bookstore is also a place where you can meet people. Encounters are accidents. It is not rare to become lifelong friends with someone who happened to sit next to you in a classroom, or to marry someone you worked with and raise children together. Within the limited nature of once-in-a-lifetime encounters, your life changes through the people you happen to meet. In the same way, you might wander into a bookstore, happen to see a book, pick it up without much thought, buy it, leave it in a corner of your room, and forget about it for a while—only to suddenly feel like reading it, which then ends up significantly changing your life.

In a strange land, you might happen to find someone who speaks your language at the same inn, so you try talking to them. In a tavern you wandered into alone, you might happen to talk to the person next to you, and since things got a bit lively, you exchange contact information. While it takes courage if you are not used to it, it is easy if the other party is a book. You look at the spine or the cover, and if it catches your interest, you try reading a bit of it standing there. That person only appears when you turn the page.

Therefore, a bookstore is a classroom, a workplace, an inn, and a tavern. It is also a train station, a public square, and social media. You happen to sit next to various people by chance. If you find a book that makes you think you might like to talk to it slowly if the opportunity arises, you can feel free to buy it and take it home, even if you don't know when you will read it.

*Reprinted from "A Reader for Future Bookstores" (NHK Publishing), pp. 20-22