absymal bookstores in taiwan
We all know about the Eslite closures, but I just visited Dream Plaza for the first time today and it was so depressing to see what used to be an entire floor of books replaced with an obscenely large Starbucks and an incredibly shitty curation. I can somewhat understand the piss poor English selections (four different Robert Greens in Psychology; half of the history section is just different editions of Sapiens & subsequent Harari books; there were five copies of Hillbilly Elegy???) But even the Chinese shelves left much to be desired. Massive sections of self-help and trading books, shelves and shelves of magazines, and just one shelf of literature. I visited the Eslite at lingko, and it was similarly depressing. Eslite Zhongshan is slightly better, and the underground bookstore is wonderful, but unfortunately there are no English books there.
I remember when I was young, we had multiple brick and mortar locations for 書林, where the English selection was huge. There was Page One at 101, which was my favorite bookstore. Of course, we also had the Eslite Dunnan location, as well as many independent bookstores. Almost every mall had a big bookstore that was mostly books(!!!). Now you're lucky to even find one bookstore in a mall at all, and any bookstore you do find can be expected to comprise (at least) 50% stationery. The last of the Japanese bookstores that my grandpa loved to visit has also closed recently.
I talked to a grandma whose store I'd been visiting for years, and she said she has been operating at a loss for years. She said she'd wanted to make it one more year to the bookstore's 50th anniversary, but she doesn't know if she will make it.
I am just so depressed at the state of things. I think the overemphasis on STEM/technology in particular has failed to introduce our generation to the joy of reading. Almost everyone I talk to thinks that reading fiction is either some faraway intellectual aspiration that they will get to when they retire, or simply that it's a waste of time.
Please do let me know if you know of any bookstores in the Taipei area that has a decent collection of books, English or Chinese! I'd very much appreciate it. :')
EDIT: The grandma's bookstore is 信義書局! The address is 復興南路二段173號. She runs the shop with her husband and her son, and they're all lovely lovely people. : ) Please do visit them if you have time!