As a writer, bookseller, marketer and book lover, I've crossed paths with Brian Baxter numerous times over the years — dating back to the early 1970s when I worked in a B. Dalton with the woman who'd marry him. Brian was a breeze of bookish glee then and nothing has dimmed his impact — especially with he's in a roomful of books.
This article captures the high points of his career and the video conveys some of his charm. Nothing is likely to replace him.
Sadly, there are fewer stores and many fewer booksellers of the Baxter sort. It's positively painful for me to enter a chain bookstore today knowing my request for help will be met with a blank look followed by a fruitless trek to a computer screen.
Selling anything but best sellers today has largely become a matter of who has the best on-line algorithms.
If I sound like an old fart lamenting the loss of the good old days, so be it. But once upon a time, going to a book store was as fun for me as going to a great neighborhood bar.
Now one of the community's great bartenders is retiring and I'm buying books from a vending machine.
