Print books are still alive and well, I assure you. Brick and mortar book stores are another matter, however. Online shopping is the new thing, and that means that the only stores that have a secure future are department stores like Walmart, and convenience stores like Walgreens. Specialty stores are becoming less common, and book have always been a specialty item. Online shopping is the perfect platform for specialty items though. Any bookstore would burst at the seems trying to cater to everyone's tastes, but Amazon has ALL of the books. I, personally, buy almost all of my books off Amazon.
Add that to the fact that, while the amount of regular readers on the planet compared to a hundred years ago has increased, the actual percentage of readers compared to the population as a whole has decreased.
And, yes, a lot of people read their books on an e-reader these days as well. This cuts into the profit margins of brick and mortar book stores even more.
What it all boils down to is an economy that makes it harder for traditional book stores to stay in business. The ones that get by do it by only carrying the most profitable items. The new stuff, the trending stuff, the books that were made into big movies in the past few years, etc. I never, EVER go into plain old book stores, because I know that there's nothing there that I would be interested in, and even if there is it would be less expensive somewhere else. If I'm not buying books off Amazon or Ebay I'm buying them from a thrift shop.
Basically Walmart is going to enslave us, is what I think I'm trying to say, so...yeah.
Well, now, that's interesting.
I notice you live in Chicago. So do I.
I live within walking distance of no less than six bookstores, only one of which is a chain (Barnes and Noble). The others are all independent bookstores: one academic, one general, two secondhand, and one comics and games bookshop.
The comics shop is only a few years old, but the others have been here for decades. They were here before a humongous Borders got built on a busy neighborhood intersection, and they remain here now that Borders has gone bankrupt and its shiny new building converted into retail and a nightclub.
Granted, it's an academic neighborhood. Nevertheless, my Chicago neighborhood supports five thriving independent bookshops, all independent of the university too (the Barnes and Noble is its "official" bookshop).
And guess what?
None of them carry "the most profitable items. The new stuff, the trending stuff, the books that were made into big movies in the past few years." They are all different from each other, but together they carry an eclectic mix of fabulous academic books, scholarly art books, the best children's book department in Chicago, seriously valuable collectible and antiquarian books, just about any of the great books of literature in a used or inexpensive paperback form, fun remaindered books, comic books, gaming books, cookbooks, mysteries, science fiction, and technical manuals.
There are some things that can't be found around here. Most magazines. Novelizations of the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Big, candy-colored TV show character kids' books. Pop religion. All the mainstays of the trendy stores.
And yet somehow our bookstores thrive.