I love my hometown but am ambivalent about the new trend of its largest retailers — Starbucks, Amazon and Costco — being the arbiters of literary taste. In case you missed it, The New York Times just ran a long piece on this trend.

Amazon is amazing. Its return rate is minuscule compared to the chains and it is very good at selling niche books. But the trend toward selling books at Starbucks and Costco helps the middle while hurting the fringes — the indie bookstores, the ... gulp ... Chin Music Presses. So we get more middling stuff. Not to say that the books Starbucks or Costco sells are bad — far from it — but they always feel like they've gone through one too many corporate tests to get on the shelves.

Take this quote from the NYT piece, for instance:

“We wanted to find extraordinary books that would encourage people to discuss compelling issues” like war, hope, faith and family, said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, I suppose, but I'm betting there is going to be a sameness to the way those issues are discussed. It's all so NPR-ish. So friggin' safe. What I like about a good bookstore is the democracy of it. You can pick up the latest by Michael Savage or Howard Zinn. Your choice. It's all there. When Starbucks presents one "compelling" title for three months, I'm reminded why I avoid the chain whenever I can. Read a Starbucks novel, listen to All Things Considered and drive a hybrid... Oh Seattle!

But then again, Seattle is home to this and this. I wonder if it's all connected.