Originally Posted by
Ken33xx 
No. An AA book/gift shop is far from the norm. I've never seen it any other place.
However, a clubhouse isn't unusual and having a sober environment to hangout before/after a meeting can be a very helpful for the newly sober as well as anyone else in AA.
I am FASCINATED by what is the "norm" in so many places and how different it is.
I never thought of it as a "gift shop" but here the bigger clubhouses do usually have a "literature closet" and one or a few people have the key; the one at the clubhouse I go to has the basics (ie BB and The 12 Traditions/12&12) and also other recovery books.
One thing I might gently add is that all of us have been writing from the "I" perspective- what "I" get out of AA. That's cool - we are each there (hopefully) with the goal of getting and being sober. But I mention this because you NEVER know what is going on with someone else- so approaching someone with lack of response (as one person above described in trying to reach out to one person) might be rebuffed bc of stuff they are dealing with, that make engaging with another just too much. I certainly remember some sensory/emotional overload in early days that made me really hesitant to talk and even to accept others overtures at connection.
I don't think we should be so dramatic about a baby/bathwater, Bill W would roll over kind of thing. AA is still around and thriving after so many years, despite some interpersonal drama or the variety of "Types" of meetings and such.
Bottom line, I gotta sift through the people around me, and find the good in AA and in my outside life. Just like everyone else, alcoholics or not!