Your Friendly Neighborhood Airport Bookstore?

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  02.18.09 | 2:41 PM ET

Photo by gahdjun via Flickr (Creative Commons)

I spent a good portion of my Friday night at Newark International this weekend, waiting on a friend’s delayed flight from Canada. As a result, I had plenty of time to conduct an in-depth study of the titles on offer at the airport’s Relay store.

The project started out innocently enough. I’ve never paid much attention to airport bookstores—long layovers generally find me sound asleep on the floor at a quiet gate, or roaming the halls in search of an unsecured wireless signal. But this time I decided to browse the magazine selection, and then (while I struggled to reconcile my love for both “Cosmopolitan” and “The Atlantic”) a section heading in the books section caught my eye: Travel and Pictorial. The heading seemed odd, because—I could see from 10 feet away—half the books in the section had been written by Candace Bushnell. Had I somehow missed Bushnell’s transition to narrative travelogue author? Curious, I moved closer. And found that the Travel and Pictorial section was filled top to bottom with Manhattan-based chick lit. Multiple copies of “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Confessions of a Shopaholic” and “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan,” and no less than four Bushnell titles (“Sex and the City” chief among them, of course) covered the shelves in a blur of chirpy, bright, pink-heavy covers.

I suppose you could argue that chick lit—much like detective fiction—is one way of getting to know a new place before visiting. But the uniformity of Relay’s “travel” section worried me a little: the visitor whose sole preparation for New York City comes courtesy of Carrie Bradshaw may find that their expectations are a tad skewed, no?

Thoroughly intrigued by the store’s offerings by now, I moved on to the “Popular” section—and that’s where things got really weird. Elie Wiesel’s “Night” sat alongside Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight.” The final “Harry Potter” and “He’s Just Not That Into You” squared off against the latest from Chuck Palahniuk and Chuck Klosterman. There was a whole shelf of Paulo Coelho titles and, below that, a sizable selection of Malcolm Gladwell. There was even some more clear-cut travel content: “Into the Wild” and the still-ubiquitous “Eat, Pray, Love.” Some older David Sedaris and a handful of journalist-written political rush jobs, timed to align with the recession and/or the election, rounded out the mix.

What did it all mean? I wandered out of the store (by this time, a security guard was eyeing me suspiciously) and sat down to think. I understood the appeal of the lightweight paperback to most travelers, and I also understood that some people wanted nothing to do with Danielle Steele, layover or no. Still, the random scattering of books from across the spectrum left me puzzled. Was Relay simply aiming to please everyone? Was there seriously a regular demand for “Night” among Newark’s passengers? (And who picks up a Holocaust memoir as an impulse buy before jumping on the red-eye?) Hadn’t everybody read “Eat, Pray, Love” by now?

As a non-airport-book-buyer, I haven’t got any answers. If you have any insights, I’d love to hear them.

Tags: Airworld, Bookstore Tourism, Literature, North America, United States, New Jersey, New York, New York City, Literary Travel

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


3 Comments for Your Friendly Neighborhood Airport Bookstore?

Kelly 02.19.09 | 11:33 PM ET

“Night” does seem a bit out of place, but it was an Oprah Book Club pick so they might choose titles based on that criteria - popularity sells. They are mostly mass market titles, since they really are a newsstand business. I know they sell books, but I think it is a stretch to call Relay a bookstore. (Disclaimer: I’m a biased indie bookseller!)  The Relay chain parent company is a publishing distributor.

Oh, and guess what? I’m one of the few left on the planet who has NOT yet read Eat Pray Love!
(I have owned a copy for over a year and have still not cracked into it…one day!)

Michael Yessis 02.20.09 | 3:34 PM ET

Great post, Eva.

I have no insights. But as an impulsive book buyer at airports, I certainly prefer oddball mixes at booksellers to the straight-up selection of Steele, Koontz, King, Patterson, etc. I do sometimes find myself buying something heavy and/or surprising to myself before a flight.

I remember many years ago somehow buying Michael Lewis’ “Liar’s Poker” before a transatlantic red-eye, despite having (at the time) no interest in Wall Street and no knowledge of the brilliance of Lewis. I think I read almost the whole thing on the flight.

By the way, loved one of my re-captcha words this time around: Passport.

Darrin DuFord 02.23.09 | 6:51 PM ET

Funny post, Eva!  This reminds me of a Queens DVD store that used to put porn in the “Romance” section.

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