Recently I included Barnes & Noble among big corporations that have brought us together and improved the quality of our lives, at least in some small way.

That posting focused on Starbucks, which I called our new Town Square. Well then, Barnes & Noble is our new Living Room.

What could be more pleasant, of a rainy Saturday, than popping by a B&N (or one of its big-box competitors)? There are easy chairs to relax and read in (usually taken, unfortunately) … a coffee bar with snacks to refresh and stimulate you … Wi-Fi for the workaholics and electricity for their laptops … and of course books. Lots of books, at low prices. Lots of magazines too.

There’s live entertainment — an author signing, often a famous one. You can buy an autographed copy but you don’t have to. There’s no charge either for the reading or the face time. Indeed, I’ve never felt any overt pressure to buy anything at any B&N (or Borders or Books-a-Million) I’ve ever visited.

I can hear the critics tuning up. The big boxes are heavy on recent titles but light on more serious stuff, they say, and it may be true. And the big boxes (Amazon.com too) helped kill the independent bookseller, critics add. This seems valid and it’s a sad loss indeed.

But hiding behind these critiques, I sense a degree of book snobbery. If anything, the advent of the big boxes mean MORE people are visiting bookstores now than before. Maybe they aren’t buying the classics, but they’re reading something. The criticism seems knee-jerk to me too — small good, corporate bad. But critics take note: If it’s books you want, most small stores just don’t have them in stock. They simply aren’t big enough.

Ah, but you don’t need lots of books, the critics will respond, if you have knowledgeable booksellers. Yes, independents are famed for having knowledgeable, well-read booksellers who’ll steer you to the book your heart desires. But here’s Barnes & Noble’s little secret: so do they.

Their booksellers are damn good. Maybe not the equal of booksellers at a good independent, but a lot better than critics credit them for being. I make this claim on the basis of appearing in more than 20 bookstores since March, from big boxes to small independents.

Helpful, knowledgeable booksellers. That’s why I put B&N above Borders, whose staff generally does not impress me. (I don’t have enough experience with Books-a-Million staff to make the same comparison, but BAM is a somewhat different animal. Their greatest strength is regional, the South, for one thing; and some of their stores are not big boxes.)

Full disclosure: B&N has been our great friend and supporter. B&N’s Small Press office in New York gave its seal of approval to my novel To Love Mercy. More B&Ns have hosted me than any other chain. They’ve put posters in their windows and some have even built “end caps” for my book. (Until you’ve seen a dozen copies of your novel in a stately pyramid at the end of a row of B&N shelves, you haven’t known ecstasy.)

A B&N assistant manager, Debbie Smart in Arlington Heights IL, has singlehandedly done more for To Love Mercy than almost anyone alive. Her most recent act of kindness was to put the book before her school district; and one of those schools, Wheeling High, has responded by placing To Love Mercy on the reading list for the Multicultural Lit class. I’ll be making my third appearance at Debbie’s store at 13 W. Rand Rd., Arlington Heights IL, on Sunday, Oct. 8, 2-4 p.m.

Borders has been a mixed bag for us, welcoming us in the Pittsburgh region but slamming the door in our face in the Chicago area. I’ve been in four BAM stores — including a personal-best signing at the BAM in the Chicago Loop, where they sold 16 copies in two hours — but BAM has canceled four other scheduled appearances in the DC area because my publisher is not an approved BAM bookseller. (Not for lack of trying either; he keeps applying, and BAM keeps not processing his paperwork.)

B&N, Borders and other big boxes have wrought other fundamental changes in the book business. Now they even behave like publishers, having a say in what your book looks and read like. Their purchasing clout has turned them into the tail that wags the bookselling dog.

But have the big boxes undercut the American public’s taste for good books? Visit any of them, note the crowds, then tell me what you think.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Leonard Lopate next Friday! Tune in WNYC-AM (820 AM) or WNYC-FM (93.9 FM) at 1 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 29, when I’m interviewed on this popular arts-and-culture show. If you aren’t in the New York tri-state metropolitan area, tune in at www.WNYC.org.

P.P.S. And speaking of high schools … my alma mater, Rich East in Park Forest IL, has invited me to return to the scene of the crime Friday, Oct. 6. I’ll be addressing two student assemblies. Revenge of the nerds!

P.P.P.S. Finally, hear about the making and marketing of To Love Mercy at a Washington Independent Writers “PubSpeak” next Tuesday. Date/place: Tuesday, Sept. 26, 7 p.m., La Madeleine, 7607 Old Georgetown Rd., Bethesda MD. WIW members: $5 in advance, $7 at the door. Non-members: $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Reservations required: (202) 775-5150 or rsvp@washwriter.org.