The Christian Century

When you buy a used book, it's like joining a conversation in progress—a conversation that may outlast you.

My wife and I used to visit a bookstore at least once a week. We can’t anymore, unless we drive 20 minutes to the now nearest one.

While I was visiting Fort Worth, Texas, recently, I walked into a used bookstore on North 8th Street—the kind of place where you can fall into a time warp, forgetting where you are until you hear the owner locking up for the day.

If the economic recession has made people more receptive to spiritual concerns and theological insights, that interest has not translated into sales of religion books (see Marcia Nelson’s report in this issue).

Conventional wisdom holds that when times get bad, people turn to religion. But that’s not the case in religion publishing. Like other business executives in the current economic doldrums, religion publishers are cutting expenses in the face of declining sales.