Since a particular bookstore happens to resemble a supermarket anyway, the inescapable, though perhaps unintended, message is that books are consumable items, meant to be devoured and forgotten, like potatoes or pizza. The implied inclusion of books among the world’s perishable goods is hardly made more agreeable by the reflection that increasing numbers of books these days do seem to be written with just such consumption in mind, and that most bookstores have become little more than news stands for hard cover publications of this sort, which are merchandised for a few weeks—sometimes only as long as they remain on the best-seller lists—and are then retired to discount store (those jumbled graveyards of books, so saddening to  the hearts of authors)shortly before dropping out of print altogether. Books that are planned for rapid oblivion probably make some kind of economic sense to publishing houses, but as contribution to literature they amount to a contradiction in terms.