St.Louis, off the written path

We went to the bookstore today to look for material on St. Louis. In the "Travel Section" we hunted down the limited section covering "the Midwest" and, there, sandwiched between a book on Minnesota and Chicago, was Off the Beaten Path: Missouri, the only book in the entire store which seemed to touch on existence of a city with a giant metal arch. They even had the Insider's Guide to Oklahoma City, several dozen books on Montana, and several thousand on Disneyland, which seems like the only place that doesn't need a guidebook.

• It doesn't have a 'bad part of town'
• Things to see are clearly labeled all over the place.
• There's a cultural festival every night.
• The food is homogenously Disney
• There's virtually no history to explain or to put in context
• You don't really want to experience the 'real' Disneyland.

So much for the bookstore. It really makes me wonder what the future will have in store, as bookstores carry fewer and fewer titles, and its easier and easier to buy anything online for a reduced price. It's already halfway to the point where the only titles you can get are Eat, Pray, Love and teenage vampire pulp.On that point, I really wonder why I don't see Anne Rice cleaning up. I havn't read any of the Twilight books, but from what I've heard of it, they really suck literary-wise. Maybe there's not enough teen angst, or its too far removed from the "modern" teen/tween. 

Anyway, I'm going to pick up a St.Louis guidebook and map online.