Printed Matters

The past weekend’s reopening of BookHampton on Main Street in East Hampton Village, under new ownership, is worth celebrating. For years, we’ve heard new-technology enthusiasts say that print is dead, but what with BookHampton re-establishing itself, a couple of lively bookshops in Sag Harbor, a cozy and delightful one in Montauk, and others thriving elsewhere on the South Fork, it seems that reports of print’s demise have been exaggerated.

Holding a beloved book in the hand is a distinct pleasure, and, for many readers, retention and understanding just seem better with a hard copy than with a screen. Plus, and hereabouts this is a big thing, e-readers just don’t cut it on the beach. Under the sun and on the sand, there’s no substitute for real, old-fashioned books.

There’s evidence that the trend away from digital reading may be more widespread. In the United Kingdom, e-book sales have dropped, while traditional bound-book sales have risen. In the United States, Kindle and other e-reader content sales dropped 13 percent last year, with print books jumping about 2.8 percent. Noting the trend, perhaps, Amazon, the behemoth online marketplace, has opened its first brick-and-mortar bookshop.

Maintaining vibrant, welcoming places of commerce is important for our downtowns. Bookstores, which stay open late and frequently host talks by authors, reading marathons, and signings, are a crucial antidote to a problem we are all painfully aware of: Main Streets that have been held hostage by fly-by-night designer boutiques and corporate-fashion outposts that function more as million-dollar billboards than useful stores. We wish BookHampton and the rest all the very best.