This bookshop was just like the others

This bookshop was just like the others.

The floors were carpeted and wooden shelves lined the walls along the length of the narrow space. The shelving was only interrupted by the doors, one at the front for customers to enter, and one at the back for staff to sneak away.

This simple layout was also disrupted by pay counter in the middle of the store, and two display tables where books rested with their front covers facing up. The front display table carried coffee table books, the back display table carried new fiction books.

The books themselves represented a wide array of titles and genres, as to be expected, but they shared traits that made this bookstore different. Each book was exactly the same size and each book shared exactly the same cover.

They were all five and a half inches by eight and a half inches, with hard navy covers that allowed each book to stand vertically on its own. The covers and spines of the books were left blank. The titles and authors were written on the first page within each book.

Customers were left with little to orientate themselves, except for the genre signage which was placed atop of each shelf. Browsing this bookshop for many people was a time intensive and random experience. People had to physically remove books from the shelf and flick through the pages in order to sample their content. Over time though, the customers of this bookshop changed and less people searched this chaotically.

Some customers only entered the shop prepared with the knowledge of which book they wanted to buy. They were cold and efficient customers who glided in and out of the store carrying with them the exact book they wanted, but only after asking the staff to locate it for them.

The other unprepared customers would have to ask staff for assistance. They would share their tastes in exchange for recommendations. Although, this trade never represented a perfect conversion. The information shared by customers was often at risk of misinterpretation by staff. These customers would leave with books, but rarely of the sort they would have chosen alone. The books will likely satiate the customers, but not in the exact way they would have imagined.

This bookshop was also notable for the customers that weren't there. Many passersby explore bookshops as galleries, dazzled by the colour of the covers. As tactile experiences, playing with the experimentation of the physical form. As museums, absorbing the culture and stores told by the names on the covers.

These passersby enter with nothing, except perhaps the hope of an impulse purchase. These passersby often leave with nothing, except perhaps a colourful memory of time spent. They float in and out of bookstores frictionlessly like a fly through flowers. The customers of this bookstore were bees harvesting pollen.

This bookstore created friction. Visually browsing was pointless as the uniformity offered customers no external insight. Customers were left instead to turn inwards toward themselves. Physically browsing was demanding amounting to finding a needle in a haystack. Customers were left to trust the staff.

In this bookstore judging the covers may have been impossible, but judgements were still being made happening. Slower, consciously, shared and shaped. In this bookshop the internal was externalised.