Mystery Room, The King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City
Consider the long-term consequences of a world controlled by Amazon. What would your community look like without independent businesses? Who would sit on your neighborhood boards and donate to local charities? What would happen to the web of your community? Where would the tax dollars that build your schools, roads, and parks come from if none of the money you spent stayed in your state? When you spend online, none of it stays at home. This is simple economics, and studies such as the one done in my city—the Utah Study Series by Civic Economics—prove it so.
But books transcend economics. A world where one company (a company which just bought one of the nation’s major newspapers) controls the manufacture and distribution of books—of ideas, in other words—doesn’t bear thinking about.
–Betsy Burton
owner, The Kings English Bookshop, Salt Lake City