A place to tarry

When dining in a restaurant, the server will often place the check on your table and say something like, "There's no hurry." We already know this, of course, and when I have had a good conversation partner, I have sometimes sat at the table for two hours or more. During busy times, however, when people are lined up waiting for a table, the management probably wants desperately for you to move on, whatever the servers might say.

Speed is a priority at a number of business, such as the one that promises a "10 minute oil change." Nobody likes standing in a long line at the grocery store or sitting in a crowded waiting room at a doctor's office.

So I am impressed by the slogan of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry, Here our greatest good is pleasure." The line comes from Epicurus in reference to his school, but it seems ideal for a bookstore. The more time people spend in a bookstore, the more books they are likely to find that they cannot resist.

And while books are often about instruction and reference and guidance, they are mostly about pleasure. We usually read what we enjoy reading.

The best bookstores encourage customers to stick around. They have chairs, for example. They serve coffee. Some have cats or even dogs. Some have authors signing books or giving talks. Children's departments have story times, giving parents a chance to browse. The more books a store has, the more time book lovers are likely to spend there, and of course the more money they are likely to spend.

One does wonder, however, whether the "here you will do well to tarry" motto still applies as closing time approaches.