Late, Great American Bookstores: Leary¡¯s Books利里書店:昨日的輝煌,今日的懷念

利里書店是美國最早的實(shí)體書店之一，主營二手書，曾是眾多愛書人心中的圣殿，但因市場(chǎng)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)激烈和地理位置等原因，這家古老的書店于1968年關(guān)閉，曾讓眾多愛書人唏噓不已。四十多年過去了，在21世紀(jì)發(fā)達(dá)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)時(shí)代，網(wǎng)上書店的蓬勃興起給實(shí)體書店帶來了前所未有的沖擊，多家實(shí)體書店紛紛倒閉。在中國，宣布停業(yè)的光合作用書店也是其中一例。相信你也曾有流連書店的經(jīng)歷，這些書店曾帶給我們那么多的快樂和滿足，若有一天它們突然消失，無法想象愛書之人將如何打發(fā)閑散時(shí)間里那漫長(zhǎng)的午后時(shí)光。下面就讓我們隨本文再次重溫利里書店的經(jīng)營理念和溫暖往事，以示懷想。

If you love reading， you’re living in the right century. The web offers you more copy than anyone could read in a lifetime， including free access to hundreds of newspapers and magazines. It also gives you access to whole libraries of rare books at gutenberg.org2) and Google Books. And since you live in the age of electronic books， you can buy new titles3) at less than half the price of hardcover. The e-book lets you carry your library in a slim， compact4) notebook， and purchase new titles online anywhere， at any time.

But， if you love books themselves， you may have chosen the wrong century to live in. The real-world， physical， walk-through-and-browse bookstore is disappearing from the American landscape. Independent bookshops5) have been quickly fading away. Borders Books6)， the national chain with 642 stores， filed for Chapter 117) status because of financial difficulties in February 2011， and finally closed on September 18 the same year.

The fate of Borders makes little difference to the people who are happy reading their novels on a Kindle， Nook8)， or iPad. But it means a great deal to devoted bibliophiles9)， who would prefer an afternoon in a good bookstore to a day at a theme park. For them， the online bookstore can never replace the pleasures of strolling down aisles of books， scanning new titles or picking up new releases that unexpectedly tickle10) their curiosity.

The peculiar lure of bookstores dates back to the 18th century， when printers began turning out books in quantities large enough to create a reading public. Bookstalls appeared in cities like Paris and London and drew a steady stream of old scholars， young students， doctors， ministers， and merchants who searched for hardbound11) treasures.

One of America’s earliest booksellers， Leary’s Book Store in Philadelphia， was a happy hunting ground12) for book lovers between 1850 and 1968. As Pete Martin described it in a 1949 The Saturday Evening Post article， “House of a Million Books，” Leary’s was the antithesis13) of the modern chain bookstore. It was old， dark， dusty， cluttered， and staffed by silent， reserved salespeople:

In Leary’s nobody asks you anything， unless you yourself ask a question first. Hung on the walls are placards that read:

To make you feel perfectly at ease in examining our immense stock， the employees are instructed not to offer assistance without being asked. This， we hope， will not be considered as inattention on our part. If you desire information， ask all the questions you want， without feeling under any obligation to purchase.

In theory， this means that if you felt like it you could visit Leary’s every day of your life and read your way at least partly through the 106 departments into which the store divides its more than 900，000 books. Throughout all those years spent reading， no one would ask you to buy a single book.

To booklovers， it comes close to being an American institution … Leary’s has been run for 113 years on the principle of not selling the customer. Businessmen may prove with charts and graphs that you can’t do business that way. But it’s been done that way at Leary’s.

This notion is so thoroughly inculcated14) on Leary’s salesmen that a few years ago one of them carried it to its ultimate conclusion. He stopped speaking to his customers altogether， even when they spoke to him， and had to be retired to pasture15).

Leary’s “l(fā)aissez-faire16)” sales policy proved to be just what serious bibliophiles wanted. Generations of book lovers became deeply attached to the old store on Philadelphia’s South 9th Street.

Novelist Christopher Morley17) paid Leary’s this tribute18): “It would be as impossible for any bibliophile to pass this secondhand bookstore as for a woman to go by a wedding party without trying to see the bride.” Morley also remarked that he would rather see one of the nation’s historic shrines demolished by fire than to be told one morning as he donned19) his bathrobe that Leary’s was no more.

Stories are current in Philadelphia about exciting book finds made at Leary’s. The most persistent of these has to do with the Leary’s customer who was supposed to have found a first edition of Stephen Crane20)’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets， for ten cents and afterward sold it for $5，000. Leary’s had no way of knowing whether this story is even partly true. It did know that the peak price brought21) by a Maggie was about $2，000. But even if true， no one at Leary’s would feel regret at having been so outsmarted22).

Mrs. William S. Stuart， ex-president of the Leary Stuart Corporation， remembered a valuable early edition of Robert Louis Stevenson23) that had been picked up by a customer on the fifty-cent table. She also recalled that a book written by one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and presented by him to George Washington—the book bore both Washington’s autograph and that of the signer—had been found in Leary’s in a basket of books previously thought to be junk.

When Leary’s closed in 1968， several valuable items were discovered in the process of emptying the store. One of them was a first printing of the Declaration of Independence， which was sold for $400，000.

Leary’s is still fondly remembered by former customers.

Will anyone remember Amazon.com so warmly 40 years after it closes?

假如你熱愛閱讀，那真是生逢其時(shí)。網(wǎng)絡(luò)為你提供了一輩子都讀不完的書籍以及成百上千可以免費(fèi)閱讀的報(bào)紙、雜志。此外，你還可以訪問古騰堡工程和谷歌圖書的整個(gè)數(shù)字圖書館，看到無數(shù)珍奇善本。而且，因?yàn)樯钤陔娮訒鴷r(shí)代，你只需付精裝書一半的價(jià)格就能買到一本新書。有了電子書，你可以把自己所有的藏書都儲(chǔ)存在一臺(tái)小巧的筆記本電腦里，并能隨時(shí)隨地在網(wǎng)上購買新書。

不過，如果你喜歡的是書籍本身，那可能就生不逢時(shí)了。那種能讓你流連其中隨意翻閱書籍的實(shí)體書店正從美國的景觀中消失。獨(dú)立書店已在迅速消失。就連在全國擁有642家連鎖店的博德斯書店也因財(cái)政困難于2011年2月申請(qǐng)破產(chǎn)保護(hù)，并最終于同年9月18日關(guān)閉。

博德斯書店關(guān)門停業(yè)的命運(yùn)對(duì)樂于在Kindle、Nook或者iPad上閱讀小說的人們來說無關(guān)緊要，但對(duì)癡心的愛書人來說卻事關(guān)重大。較之于在主題公園游玩一天，愛書人更喜歡在一家有品位的書店里消磨一個(gè)下午。漫步書廊，瀏覽新書目，或偶遇一本出乎意料地滿足自己好奇心的新書——這其中的樂趣是網(wǎng)上書店無法取代的。

書店的獨(dú)特魅力可追溯到18世紀(jì)，那時(shí)書籍開始被大量印刷，培育出了公眾閱讀群體。書攤開始在巴黎、倫敦等城市出現(xiàn)，吸引了絡(luò)繹不絕的人群——年長(zhǎng)的學(xué)者、年輕的學(xué)子、醫(yī)生、牧師，乃至來書攤尋找精裝珍品書籍的商人。

位于費(fèi)城的利里書店是美國最早的書店之一，1850～1969年間，它一直是愛書人淘“寶”的樂園。1949年，皮特·馬丁在《周六晚郵報(bào)》上發(fā)表了一篇名為《百萬書庫》的文章。正如他在這篇文章中所描述的，利里書店與現(xiàn)代的連鎖書店截然不同，它老式破舊，店里光線昏暗、灰塵彌漫，書籍?dāng)[放雜亂無章，店員安靜而矜持：

在利里書店，你若不先開口詢問，店員不會(huì)主動(dòng)迎上前來問這問那。書店墻上的標(biāo)語牌上這樣寫道：

為了讓您在瀏覽我們這數(shù)量龐大的藏書時(shí)感到完全地舒適、自在，我們吩咐店員，您不提出要求，店員不得主動(dòng)提供服務(wù)。希望您不要以為這是我們有意怠慢。如果您希望了解什么信息，您盡可以隨意詢問，無需有任何必須購買的心理負(fù)擔(dān)。

從理論上講，這就意味著如果你喜歡，你生命里的每一天都可以來利里書店讀書。這里有90多萬冊(cè)圖書，分成106個(gè)類別，你至少可以讀完其中的一部分。就算你花多年的時(shí)間在這兒閱讀，也沒人要求你必須購買其中的一本。

對(duì)愛書人來說，利里書店幾乎成了美國的公共機(jī)構(gòu)……書店一直秉承不向顧客推銷書籍的原則，如此運(yùn)營了113年。商人們也許會(huì)用各種圖表來證明，生意不能這么做。但利里書店一直就是這么做的。

這一理念被徹徹底底地灌輸給了利里的店員們，幾年前一位店員甚至將其發(fā)揮到了極致。他完全不跟顧客交談，即使顧客跟他說話，他也不予理睬，最后只好被辭退，回家養(yǎng)老。

利里書店“不干涉主義”的經(jīng)營模式正是真正的愛書人求之不得的。一代代愛書人對(duì)費(fèi)城南部第九大街的這家老牌書店都充滿了深深的依戀。

小說家克里斯托弗·莫利曾這樣贊頌利里書店：“愛書人經(jīng)過這個(gè)二手書店時(shí)，必然會(huì)走進(jìn)去瞧上一會(huì)兒，就如同女人走過婚禮宴會(huì)時(shí)一定要去看看新娘一樣?！蹦€說，他寧愿看到國家的某座具有歷史意義的神殿毀于大火，也不想在某個(gè)清晨正穿浴袍時(shí)被告知利里書店已不復(fù)存在。

費(fèi)城流傳著很多關(guān)于在利里書店發(fā)現(xiàn)奇書的故事。其中流傳最久的一個(gè)，和利里書店的一位顧客有關(guān)。據(jù)傳，這位顧客發(fā)現(xiàn)了斯蒂芬·克萊恩所著《街頭女郎瑪吉》一書的初版，他以十美分購買，后來以五千美元賣出。利里書店無法考證這個(gè)故事哪怕是不是部分屬實(shí)，他們只知道一本《瑪吉》賣出的最高價(jià)是兩千美元。不過，即使這個(gè)故事是真的，利里書店的店員也不會(huì)因?yàn)楸宦斆鞯念櫩驼剂吮阋硕蠡诓坏?/p>

利里·斯圖爾特公司前總裁威廉·S·斯圖爾特夫人回憶道，書店里曾有一部羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森作品的早期珍本，這本書被一個(gè)顧客以50美分的價(jià)格買走。她還記得書店里曾有一本書，是《獨(dú)立宣言》的一位簽署者寫的。這本書的作者將書贈(zèng)予了喬治·華盛頓，書上因此有了華盛頓和該書作者兩人的親筆簽名。這本書是在利里書店的一筐廢書里找到的，之前這些書都被當(dāng)成了垃圾。

利里書店于1968年關(guān)閉時(shí)，在清理書庫的過程中，店員們又發(fā)現(xiàn)了若干珍本。其中就有《獨(dú)立宣言》的第一版，最后以40萬美元的價(jià)格賣出。

直到現(xiàn)在，老顧客們?nèi)陨钋榈貞涯钪飼辍?/p>

倘若有一天亞馬遜網(wǎng)上書店也關(guān)閉了，40年后，也會(huì)有人對(duì)它抱有如此熱切的懷想嗎？

1.Leary’s Books：即利里書店(Leary’s Book Store)，美國最早的實(shí)體書店之一，主營二手書，約建于1836年，于1968年關(guān)閉。

2.gutenberg.org：即古騰堡工程(Project Gutenberg)，最早的數(shù)字圖書館，由志愿者參與，致力于文本著作的電子化、歸檔以及發(fā)布。該工程由邁克爾·哈特(Michael Hart)于1971年啟動(dòng)，其中的大部分書籍都是公有領(lǐng)域書籍的原本，古騰堡工程確保這些原本自由流通、格式開放，可在各種電腦上閱讀。

3.title [#712;ta#618;t(#601;)l] n. (書、刊等的)一種，一本

4.compact [#712;k#594;mpaelig;kt] adj. 小巧的，袖珍的

5.independent bookshop：獨(dú)立書店，由個(gè)人或小團(tuán)體獨(dú)立創(chuàng)辦、經(jīng)營，注重人文關(guān)懷。在這里，買書的功能已不那么重要，更重要的是讀者和書本、音樂一起度過難得的寧靜時(shí)光。

6.Borders Books：博德斯書店，美國第二大連鎖書店，創(chuàng)建于1971年，于2011年9月18日關(guān)閉。

7.Chapter 11：〈美〉破產(chǎn)保護(hù)(源自美國《破產(chǎn)法》第11章)

8.Nook：美國最大的圖書零售企業(yè)Barnes Noble公司發(fā)布的一款電子閱讀器

9.bibliophile [#712;b#618;bli#601;#716;fa#618;l] n. 書籍愛好者(尤指對(duì)書籍的裝幀、印刷等特別感興趣者)

10.tickle [#712;t#618;k(#601;)l] vt. 使?jié)M足，使高興

11.hardbound [#712;hɑ#720;d#712;ba#650;nd] adj. (書)硬皮的，硬封面的

12.hunting ground：有希望找到所尋求東西的地方

13.antithesis [aelig;n#712;t#618;θ#601;s#618;s] n. 對(duì)立面

14.inculcate [#712;#618;nk#652;lke#618;t] vt. 諄諄勸導(dǎo)；反復(fù)灌輸

15.pasture [#712;pɑ#720;st#643;#601;(r)] n. 退休

16.laissez-faire [#716;le#618;se#618;#712;fe#601;(r)] n.〈法〉放任主義，不干涉主義

17.Christopher Morley：克里斯托弗·莫利(1890～1957)，美國記者、小說家、散文家和詩人，主要作品有小說《特洛伊木馬》(The Trojan Horse)、《基蒂·福伊爾》(Kitty Foyle)等。

18.tribute [#712;tr#618;bju#720;t] n. 頌辭，稱贊

19.don [d#594;n] vt. 披上，穿上

20.Stephen Crane：斯蒂芬·克萊恩(1871～1900)，美國著名的文學(xué)家，代表作有長(zhǎng)篇小說《街頭女郎瑪吉》(Maggie: A Girl of the Streets)、《紅色英勇勛章》(The Red Badge of Courage)等。

21.bring [br#618;#331;] vt. 在商品交換中得到

22.outsmart [#716;a#650;t#712;smɑ#720;(r)t] vt. 比……更機(jī)靈，智勝

23.Robert Louis Stevenson：羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森(1850～1894)，蘇格蘭小說家、詩人和旅游作家，英國文學(xué)新浪漫主義的代表之一，代表作有《金銀島》(Treasure Island)、《化身博士》(Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)等。