An Observation

I was in Barnes & Nobel a month ago, which was a huge feat that I was able to leave the apartment for as many hours as I did, particularly that day. I went to read books I didn't plan to buy and put them back. I know I'm not the only one who does that. Anyway, during the holiday season B&N lets charities come in to do gift wrapping and keep the proceeds. When I was there it was the local Golden Retriever Rescue. There were 2 dogs there. As I was rolling through the store I thought of the golden, Avery, who lives in my building. He's a seeing eye dog. Then I thought of the woman who he belongs to, who is obviously blind, and the fact that I was in a bookstore that sells print books. I started to think of how weird it would be for someone who is blind to be in a bookstore. What would they be there for? Bookstores don't sell books in braille. Neither do they sell large print I believe. I guess, now that I think about it, they do sell audio books.

I wonder why bookstores don't sell braille books. Why can't a bookstore have a braille section between the cookbooks and the biographies? Why can't bookstores have a large print section between Latino and marketing? The problem, what would they stock in a relatively small section? The current best sellers I guess. But when do you decide to send unsold books back and restock with newer bestsellers? An issue, but not one that is insurmountable. Another bookstore question, if bookstores can have African American, GBLT, feminist, Latino sections why can't they have a disability culture section in there too, if even just a shelf?

[That's Avery and his mom, above, at work. Picture swiped from today's Baltimore Sun article]