The Office

The window in the hotel room I stayed in earlier this week looked directly out on an office building.

Battle of the Academic Bookstores: Arguments for and Against

Blackwell's is currently decorated with banners that declare it to be the "best bookstore in Britain since 1879". That's true, but how does it compare with the Seminary Co-op bookstore in Chicago? That question is slightly unfair, because the seminary Co-op does not carry the normal range of pulp fiction and celebrity cookbooks and sports biographies. The Seminary Co-op is a dedicated academic bookstore, where you can buy copies of Kant's Anthropology and Reclam editions of Kant and Hegel. So there's a couple of different questions to ask about the relative merits of Blackwell's and the Co-op:

(1) Which is the better academic bookstore?
(2) Counting the popular branch of the Co-op (57th street books), which is the better bookstore overall?

Blackwell's has two specialty bookstores across Broad Street from the main shop: an art and poster store, and a music store. I'll count both of those for the purposes of assessing both (1) and (2).

I think it is possible for a bookstore to be a good bookstore overall without being a good academic bookstore. And it's not just possible--it's actually the case that some bookstores are are good overall without being good academically. For example:

-Kramerbooks (D.C.)
-Qi (Oxford)

Both of these are very pleasant places to browse a limited, but thoughtfully chosen and entertainingly arranged selection of books. Both have attached cafes or bars.

To decide between Blackwell's and the Co-op in terms of general quality, features like the following will be important: pleasant atmosphere, a thoughtful selection of books, and arrangements of books that get me to buy things (or at least write things down to check out from the library) I didn't come in looking for.

The criteria for academic quality are different. Since I'm a philosophy student, I will concentrate on the philosophy sections and take them as representative of the academic collections as a whole. I just don't have enough experience with other sections to tell how the astronomy or political sociology or theology sections compare.

Here I will be concerned with a comparison solely in terms of academic quality.

Philosophy Section Size
Both Blackwell's and the Co-op have gigantic philosophy sections. My estimate is that they have nearly the same amount of shelf area devoted to the discipline.

Organization

Blackwell's

There are important differences in the way that Blackwell's and the Co-op organize their philosophy sections. Blackwell's enforces a de facto analytic-continental divide by organizing its philosophy books into subject areas. There are sections for philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, political philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of language and logic, and ethics. Then there are historical sections, roughly broken down by century, going up to the German Idealists. There is a whole wall of contemporary, or 20th century, European philosophy. That's where you will find all the Foucault and Derrida, as well as the Wittgenstein.

I find this arrangement annoying. Where should you look to find a book like Reasons and Persons? Metaphysics? No. Ethics. What about one of Dennett's books, like Freedom Evolves? Philosophy of science? Metaphysics? Philosophy of Mind? I haven't looked for that book in Blackwell's, but the point is that I wouldn't know immediately where to go. I think I remember seeing the two volumes of McDowell's essays in the philosophy of mind section. That seems odd. This arrangement also has the effect of putting books by the same author in different sections, so you can't, say, see everything they have by David Lewis or Charles Travis by looking in a single place.

One benefit of Blackwell's arrangement is that if you concentrate on a single section (philosophy of language, say), you very quickly spot new titles in that area. So, on my last visit, for example, I spotted two cool-looking new books I didn't know about beforehand: Max de Gaynesford's I and Michael Devitt's Ignorance of Language.

Another benefit is that the Blackwell Companions and Routledge Introductions, and other survey-ish books are separated out from the main sections and grouped together. Zed has complained before about how the Co-op doesn't do this (with the exception of the Cambridge Companions, which are organized together).

One idiosyncratic psychological effect that Blackwell's organization has on me is to make me depressed. I think this is caused by the feeling that I can't keep up with all the new material published in even a subdiscipline of philosophy.



Seminary Co-op

The Co-op has contrasting virtues and vices of organization.

It doesn't separate its philosophy section into areas of philosophy. So you can find McDowell pretty close to Malebranche. Though you do need to know that there is a separate cognitive science section, where you find most of the Dennett and Fodor and the Churchlands, a separate theology section, where all the Kierkegaard is, and a philosophy of science section where you have to go to find Kuhn. So with those exceptions, you can find all the works by an author grouped together--all the David Lewis, all the John Perry. Of course, there is still the problem of knowing where to look for a book like Bernard Williams's Descartes: under Williams, or under Descartes? But that's a general problem for all bookstores. (At the Hyde Park Powells, sometimes they handle this problem by putting one copy of, say, Karen Green's book on Dummett, in the K section and another copy in the D section.)

If you're looking for new books in your area of philosophy, you're pretty much at sea in the Co-op. When Tom Baldwin was visiting, we took him to the Co-op and that was his main complaint about the philosophy section. This strikes me as an expression of the interdisciplinarity championed at the U of C. Good in some ways (I don't get depressed going into the Co-op, looking at a single narrow section of philosophy), but bad in others (it is harder to keep on top of, and so be expert at, a single area).

There is a main table covered in new books of all kinds in the foyer of the Co-op, which is quickly browseable, but also not separated by subject area. Only a small portion of the new books out on the table will be philosophy.

New books at the Seminary Co-op.

Used Books

One substantial advantage that Blackwell's has over the Co-op is its used book section. It is obviously the destination for students to sell back their required reading, so they always have multiple copies, some nearly untouched, of commonly assigned books--lots of Descartes, introductions to logic, etc. I've also scored some pretty decent used books there: hardcover 1st editions of Zettel and The Blue and Brown Books, and a paperback copy of Bernard Williams's Descartes (which used to be hard to find, but has been recently reissued).

The Co-op doesn't have a used section, though Powells can be very good and is just a few blocks away. Though Powells doesn't have as much turnover as the used section at Blackwell's.

Other remarks

Though I'm not as familiar with some of the other sections of these bookstores, I do have a sense that the film section at the Co-op is vastly superior to the film selection at Blackwell's.

The film section at the Co-op

Atmosphere

This is the most response-dependent way of comparing these bookstores, but I prefer the utilitarian, bomb shelter feel of the Co-op to the open and airy atmosphere of Blackwell's. The Co-op is singlemindedly devoted to its books--in the pictures above you can see how there is no space between the books and the ceiling. There is very little space taken up by signs or other displays. I also like that. The books are allowed to call attention to themselves. It encourages a feeling of intense study. The overhead pipes occasionally make a noise that sounds like the ceiling is going to collapse.

Blackwell's has an excellent cafe, where you can sit and read the Observer and have an espresso. The Co-op barely has enough room to squeeze by other customers. That, for whatever reason, adds to the charm of the Co-op as an academic bookstore.

Finally, the Co-op has the edge in hours of operation. Blackwell's closes at the ridiculously early time of 6pm on weekdays. The Co-op is open until 9.

Co-op hours of operation

Staff

My experience with the staff at Blackwell's has been mixed. Most of the time they know where stuff is, but they are never exceptionally friendly, and a few times they've pointed me in the wrong direction.

In contrast, the staff at the Co-op are exceptionally good--they know exactly where everything is, and are always willing to track things down for me, rather than just saying something like "I think it's in the music section". And they have even read, or at least looked through, some of the books they are selling. One guy who works at the Co-op pointed out this picture, buried in the middle of the recent H.L.A. Hart biography, to me while I was walking around browsing.

Summary

So, let me review the points in favor of each bookstore:

Size of collection: tie

Organization: Blackwell's gets a point for focus; the Co-op gets a point for avoiding parochialism

Used books: Blackwell's

Atmosphere: The Co-op

Hours: The Co-op

Staff: The Co-op

I therefore conclude that the best academic bookstore in the English speaking world is the Seminary Co-op.

Battle of the Academic Bookstores

What is the best academic bookstore in the English speaking world? Is it Blackwells in Oxford, or the Seminary Co-op in Hyde Park?

Blackwells.

The Seminary Co-op.

I've considered this question before, without coming to any decision. I just spent about a week hanging around Blackwells, and now I'm back in Chicago so I feel like I'm in a good position to settle this once and for all.

Reasons in favor of each in the next entry.

First week of school

Walking through Harper Library this afternoon, I spotted what must have been a freshman with a copy of the Republic, reading book I. It reminded me of this headline.

Savile Row

Ben and I got laughed out of Turnbull & Asser.

Logic Lane

The Phoenix

The Phoenix shows good movies. And £2.80 gets you a bag of chocolate covered ginger and a coffee.

English Food Review, Part IV: Sausage and Mash

At the Big Bang restaurant on Walton Street in Oxford.

Welsh pork and leek sausage, grain mustard mashed potatoes, red cabbage, peas, and stilton sauce. They get their sausage from the place in the covered market where I got my pies.

They were out of the rhubarb crumble for dessert, unfortunately.

English Food Review, Part III: English Breakfast

The English breakfast pictured above is from some café in Soho--can't remember the name. Maybe Ben can remind me. Parts of it were good, other parts not so great. The sausage was very nice, not at all bready, and the beans were pretty solid, though you can see the wartime rationing size of the beans portion. Bacon (hidden under the toast) and eggs were forgettable. Toast was nice, and there was plenty of it. But the potato squares were a bit soggy, and the mushrooms were cold and clammy. But, even so, this succeeded in briefly satisfying my E.B. desire.





This is more like it. Brown's café in Oxford's covered market. I had never been into Brown's before this trip, partly because the interior looks a little seedy. But it served up a near-perfect E.B. Sausage was a bit bready and only so-so; beans sweet and good, egg perfectly over medium; bacon some of the best I've had--incredibly salty with perfectly crispy fat; fried toast, however, was the highlight. Almost like a dessert.

English Food Review, Part II: Pie Shop

While in Oxford I tried a couple of different pies from the David John shop in the covered market. I don't know why I never tried one of their steak and onion pies before. They run about £1-2, and make a serious lunch. I don't have a picture of the steak and onion pie because I was so hungry I ate it before I thought to take a picture of it. It had big chunks of steak and recognizable slices of onion. The pie crust lost most of its flakiness due to microwaving.

Pictured above is a much less enjoyable pork and leek pie. The guy behind the counter smiled and said I picked a good one when I chose it, but now I think he was making fun of me. I tried to have it microwaved, but he said it was best eaten cold, because of the 'gelatin' in the filling. Again, I'm not sure whether he was just giving me a hard time. The pie was as solid as a chunk of lead and nearly impossible to eat with a plastic fork. The pork was tasty, but I couldn't get over eating it and a thin layer of flavorful gelatin cold. The ginger beer was good, though not spicy enough.

England Food Review, Part I: Fish & Chips

Tanyas Fish Bar in Barnes, down the street from Ben & Yaz's place.


A perfect, portable packet of food.


Haddock, chips, mushy peas and ginger beer. The peas were so hot and liquidy when first opened that they were nearly inedible, but as they cooled I found them to be pretty good. Fish was awesome, chips just the right mixture of salt, vinegar and absorbed fish essence. Ginger beer nice and spicy. All consumed on the bank of the Thames.


Posh Fish on Walton Street in Oxford.


Cod and chips and mushy peas. Mushy peas some of the best I've had, sweet and flavorful. Fish was a little bland, chips not enough vinegar. But none of that mattered when the fish and chips were combined with the peas.


Good array of generic sauces.

Hammersmith Bridge

A nice place to watch the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, I'm told.

Defending the Gown from the Town

More of these.

Oberkommando des Heeres

Another interesting detail about Austin's notes for How to Do Things With Words I noticed:

The cover page for his Harvard lectures in 1952-1953 (lectures VII, VIII, IX, X (1952) lectures VIII, IX, X, XI (1953)) (p.101 in the volume) is a heavy stock piece of purple paper that Austin must have picked up during his time in the intelligence services in World War II.

The cover looks like this:

Oberkommando des Heeres

Heeres-Personalamt

HARVARD IX

Personalakten

für

------------------------------------

Uttering and Acting

------------------------------------------------------

'Oberkommando des Heeres' translates as 'Army Supreme Command', and 'Personalamt' is something like 'Personnel Office', while 'Personalakten' are 'Personal Files'. Austin has written in his own information in the spaces provided on the cover sheet. This strikes me as hilarious.

Words and Deeds

I've been spending all of my time reading Austin's 'Sense and Sensibilia' lecture notes. Since today is probably my last day in the library, I browsed through the two volumes of his notes for 'How to Do Things With Words'. The most remarkable thing about these notes is that from pp.152-222 (70 pages), on A3 (legal size) sheets of pink paper (some covered front and back), Austin has written densely packed lists of hundreds (probably thousands) of verbs. On a randomly chosen page of 'behabitives', I counted 65 in one column on a four column page! There must be extensive repetition, however, because the verbs are first listed under 'Behabitives', 'Verdictives', 'Exercitives', 'Commissives', etc. , then they are grouped together in a general list that distinguishes between 'explicit', 'implicit', 'descriptive', 'suiting action', and 'non-perfomatives'. It is remarkable.

(If I were allowed to take a picture of these pages, I would, but I'm not, so I won't.)

The first listed verb in the massive list is the verdictive 'absolve' (p. 153) and the last is in a list of 'rights, claims, votes, consents': 'yield'.

Mid-Century, Middlebrow

The London Design Museum. The main exhibit was a multiroom display of Formula 1 racecars and short videos about the history of Formula 1. The cars were cool, especially the early ones. The exhibit conveyed the formidable complexity of the car's design. And I learned that the exhaust pipes of the cars have to be made out of something like titanium because they glow red hot when they're being used.

The permanent exhibition on the top floor was more of what I expected--lots of mid century chairs in lucite display cases, copies of The Face, old Man Ray posters for the Underground, a TV playing a loop of classic British TV opening sequences (can't get the Dr. Who music out of my head), a Morris Minor and Mini, and some strange orange colored 3-wheeled car.

This is the kind of museum that doesn't demand too much of you.

Traffic Stop

Police stop traffic as it comes across the Hammersmith Bridge.



This is all happening right below her window.

English Domestic Life

Barnes, London.


Norham Road, Oxford.

It's very pleasant.

Reading J.L. Austin

I'm holed up in the John Johnson manuscripts reading room in the Bodleian, reading and transcribing J.L. Austin's notes for his 'Sense and Sensibilia' lecture series. It is slow going--I've gotten through about 50 pages of notes, which represents two lecture series. There are about another 70 pages of lecture notes and maybe 100 pages of miscellaneous scraps that have all been collected.

Austin's handwriting is about 95% intelligible. What takes the most effort is desciphering his shorthand. For example, both 'word' and 'would' get abbreviated as 'wd', 'sixpence' is abbreviated '6d'.

Some other interesting finds:

In his 1947 notes, Austin calls Ayer's search for a 'word that exactly fits the facts' a search for a 'shadow''. (Travis might be interested in this.)

Austin says that the assumption that an object 'ought always to look [the way] we say it is' is 'idiotic'.

In the 1948 lectures he says that if someone says that there is a different sense of 'exist' in the sentence 'The silvery speck does exist and is the star', then there will be a 'million senses! even chimeras!!'

Finally, a note in the 1947 lectures says: 'talk abt Ayer (& Price) in detail: only way seriously to cure insanity.'

Norrington Room

The Norrington room in the basement of Blackwell's.

One virtue of the way the philosophy books are displayed in this room (by subject) is that you can easily spot new titles. I saw two new ones that looked good in the philosophy of language section:

1. Max de Gaynesford, I
2. Michael Devitt, Ignorance of Language

Oxford Late Night

Late night walk home on Parks Road.

First English Aeronaut

Behind Merton College, Oxford.

Jericho Tavern

Using the wireless in the Jericho Tavern in Oxford. I was waiting to go see an Almodóvar movie at the Phoenix.

To Let

These signs are everywhere. I find it impossible to look at these signs without unconsciously filling in the missing letter.

No Euro

I'm going back to the U.K. for awhile.

Fall, Winter, Summer

Looking south from Kimbark and 55th. Taken on November 8, 2005, December 9, 2005 and September 1, 2006, respectively.