By Walt Hickey Books Bookstores are taking a beating this year, with sales down 31 percent in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period of 2019. Through October, bookstores moved $4.97 billion worth of pulp, down from $7.19 billion in the span of 2019, a period of time when otherwise overall retail sales ended up coming in flat. There hasn’t been much of a recovery either: In October, bookstore sales were $446 million, down 27.8 percent compared to October 2019, and pretty much the same year-over-year dip was seen in September, when sales were off 27.7 percent.