Capitol Hill Books Has DC’s Most Curmudgeonly Store Owner | Hacker News Reader

Capitol Hill Books Has DC’s Most Curmudgeonly Store Owner

washingtonian.com

54 pointspolpenn26 comments

It's sad that, the more I live off my Kindle, the less serendipity I let into my reading life. There's something about the experience of a bookstore -- thumbing through a commentary on Origen in the Strand's basement and feeling the subway rattle the walls, finding a classic dime-store noir novel at Kayo, happening upon a first edition of Nabakov at McMurtry's Booked Up -- that gives you the sense of finding something secret, knowledge hidden away in the mouse-eaten pages of a volume buried deep in the stacks; books too rare, too obscure to ever make it to the clean and spacious realm of digitization. Now I'm mostly likely to just check out the daily and monthly deals in the Kindle store and never set foot in an actual store. I think I'm the poorer for it.

What's stopping you from ditching the kindle and finding a bookstore?

Part of it is no longer having eighty linear feet of ten-foot high bookcases anymore, part of it is just that the Kindle is so damned convenient for most books, and Safari only slightly less so. (And it's not as if I don't visit bookstore at all -- I walked out of a used bookstore the other day with a monograph on NLP and a copy of The Grand Strategy of Phillip II, both of which were serendipitous finds.)

But there's definitely a crowding-out effect with e-books, or even Amazon's many books for a penny (plus S&H). With Amazon, I no longer have to search widely for a particular book or topic, but that also means I'm not going to randomly wander through other sections and suddenly discover buried gold. In a certain sense, I have more information about a narrow segment of the market -- the specific book I'm looking for -- but less information about the market in general.

One Story used to be good for discovering different authors. It's no where near what you're describing, but it's a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Story

I still buy a bunch of non-fiction by looking through charity shops (UK version of thrift stores, maybe).

I like his style. It seems honest. Most of his rules described in the article are reasonable (like those about backpacks or cellphones). His book classification is strongly opinionated, but I'd consider it a feature.

> The customer isn’t always right. I am. People don’t like that. They think I should be groveling—I don’t grovel.

Again, very honest, and I think he has a point. Most businesses today are run according to "customer is always right - as long as he pays" principle. I.e. they'll pander to you if they can make money, but the moment the transaction is done (or you're deemed more trouble than you're worth), you're treated as trash[0]. I personally prefer an up-front shopkeeper than one that pretends to be my friend (and one that is honest-to-God friendly ends up getting my repeat business, including buying things I don't really need just because I like them).

[0] - See e.g. subthread about coffee shops here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11802667. It's all super cute and lovely as long as you take your coffee and quickly leave.

Hah, this is the perfect embodiment of why I rarely patronize local businesses. The kind of person who starts one of these establishments is no doubt quirky.

There is a coffee shop next door to my apartment. It has random rules posted on all surfaces to which signs can be affixed. Feel like I'm going to go to prison if I walk in there and do something wrong inadvertently, so I just go to Starbucks to avoid causing any problems. I like that these people are running a coffee shop, and I'd like to support them. But it's just too scary for me. Better to stick with something inviting, or at least known.

My favorite part of this article is how the owner doesn't say he runs the bookstore solely to overhear people's conversations, but it seems clear to me that that's his main reason. Rules about what you cannot say, "I don't like cell phones because you can only hear one side of the conversation", etc. I'll pass.

Maybe this is all an east coast thing, though. In Chicago I never noticed local businesses being quirky (and I'll go out of my way to get coffee at Intelligentsia). Same with Mountain View. But everyone in New York has quite the desire to become king or queen of their own empire, and are sure to let you know it.

> he runs the bookstore solely to overhear people's conversations

This is a really weird thing to come away with. Hell, I remember as mobile phones were starting to become popular, there were more than a few comedians that had "how irritating it is to hear one half of a conversation" as part of their acts. It's not about eavesdropping, it's about a broken cadence.

I wonder if there are any who look at the network traffic on the Wi-Fi network.

> Maybe this is all an east coast thing, though.

There are some coffee shops in Oakland that have explicit no laptop policies. I used to live near a coffee in shop in Portland where the owner would randomly unplug the wifi if he didn't like the people sitting in his shop and working.

I think that's a reasonable if somewhat misguided policy, I've worked in coffeeshops and I make sure I buy something every half hour or so (not good for the waistline) since I'm occupying space they are paying for.

I actually wish they'd work out what a fair market rate is for someone occupying that desk, throw in unlimited coffee and just charge me by the hour.

If it gets really busy I clear out since they can make more turning over tables than with me sat there, I've noticed by doing that and not pretending to own the table I'm sat at the coffee shop owners are friendlier.

If there are empty tables, it's fine to sit as long as you like. If there aren't empty tables, it's common courtesy to eat and go.

Seems straightforward to me.

This is true, consider that having patrons sitting in your shop attracts others often enough that they will appreciate you being there if its empty. If it gets full though, buying stuff and leaving when you are finished is good form.

Come to Berkeley and all the old stores on telegraph seem to be run this way.

Been there and he has some great selections. So it's a fun trip. Most used book sellers I go to up and down the east coast are about the same level of "Happy to help you buy stuff, happy to help you out the door if you are annoying". Most used book people are not in it for a huge ROI, they are book lovers.

3rd pic down in the bottom left, you can see "Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman". Seems this bookshop owner has some good taste in what he chooses to stock :)

Yelp reviews, since the article didn't link them:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/capitol-hill-books-washington

LOL, choice quote:

"When I spoke to the owner (an elderly cantankerous man) about trading some books with him, he was extremely rude. When he asked why I had so many copies of several books, I told him I had a TBI and forgot that I already had the books. He turned to my husband and very sarcastically offered his condolences. " (1/5)

I really like this person.

I hear “Perfect,” I hear “Like, like, like, like,” and I hear “Awesome” every 32 seconds and it was causing me to have brain damage

They love to leave the doors open so I can try to air condition the outside.

I don’t let computer books in here because they are obsolete the day they’re printed.

And perhaps the best The customer isn’t always right. I am.

Now I really want to visit this store.

See also: Quarter-Price Books in Houston. Love the place, and the owner (while not quite as Book Nazi as this guy) is equally crabby.

Just don't go there during the summer. It's not airconditioned well.

It's actually quite a nice store, you see funny comments on most of the books.

And the owner really does seem to know his stuff. I bought Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadeter and while I was paying he was like.

So you getting this? I got through a quarter of the book before I realized I was too stupid to understand it. -Hahaha well I can only hope that I will -You need more than that

Still haven't read the book but I'll surely remember him when I happen to don't understand the book

That book has a wonderful point, it just doesn't express it very concisely. I don't blame the author for this though, since I don't think we actually have the language to express that kind of stuff concisely.

It is unfortunately out of my usual rounds. Supposedly the late owner of Idle Time Books in Adams-Morgan was known to give a hard time to buyers in search of books he didn't care for--The Bridges of Madison County is the example I think I recall.

I'd love to visit his store. It's awesome^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H dazz.

Something that looking at this post reminded me of is how all our digitalization is very much abdicating control of information and even down right ownership.

Does anyone remember the incident where Amazon just decided that they needed to delete books they had sold to Kindle users and just went in and did so off everyone's Kindle?

We have even arrived at the point where people don't even question ownership anymore. You can't give or sell your books, you can't buy second hand books, you can't sell your digital movies, etc. I thought I recalled either a court case or policy effort to make transfer and sharing of materials possible so you could, e.g., lend your friend a movie or book, and so you could sell a digital copy at a discounted rate.

I don't think people quite appreciate the ramifications of this, because sure, now it only extends to digital content, but how soon before other industries get the bright idea that you are only buying the "license" to the disign of their furniture and the design of their car and they are giving you the materials for free to use, you know, like it currently is with digital content, and then they make it illegal to sell your furniture or car or any other object that you are only licensing the deign of.

Because we know that it's not like movies or music has gotten any cheaper with the absence of the roughly 70% of production and distribution costs of physical media that has now all gone to profit.

> Does anyone remember the incident where Amazon just decided that they needed to delete books they had sold to Kindle users and just went in and did so off everyone's Kindle?

Yes. Amusingly, the books in the case I remember were Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.

I'm not quite sure what to make of a person like that offering a "post trump America starter pack". I for one want to MAGA because I have the dignity not to think that kind of book store is cool, or hip, or awesome or whatever the hippest of the hip bearded man-bun donning hipsters use these days to describe stuff they discover that was never lost or forgotten in the first place.

Interestingly enough, there are quite a few of these weird ass hoarder book stores in the DC area.

Curmudgeonly

Had to look that one up...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com