And so the bookselling world has just gotten a little bit smaller. Close to 400 Borders stores are closing and all three of my local stores which had somehow managed to avoid that initial cut will be gone by mid-September. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this. For obvious reasons this is indeed a sad day and yet again it is a reminder of how rapidly and irrevocably the book world is changing, and not exactly for the better it seems to me. Fewer stores mean fewer choices and less access to books for purchase--at least locally.
For more than ten years I worked in a really wonderful independent bookstore in my city's downtown Old Market area, a job I loved. If it had remained open I would probably still be working there part time, but in the early 2000s it succumbed to fierce local competition and closed. This was in part due to Borders opening several large stores (and no doubt as well in part to online retailers like Amazon). Stores that had better buying power with the publishers and could offer deeper discounts to customers (well, that's what everyone thought anyway) than a small independent could.
I loved working in a bookstore. Loved the historical part of town I worked in and the customers who would drop in for their daily New York Times or just to browse. My bookstore didn't have a coffee shop. It didn't have that slick upscale interior design that seems to be in every chain bookstore, but it had charm and personality. The books were selected with local customers in mind, with varied stock which you might not find in any other bookstore. Everyone who worked there loved to read and loved to talk about books.
When the bookstore where I worked closed it left a bitter taste in my mouth and I admit I could never quite warm up to Borders. I chose to frequent B&N more often instead (everyone has their own favorite and that happened to be mine from the few choices available). If it wasn't such a miserable situation for so many people (particularly the many people who are losing their jobs), and please don't hate me for admitting this, I think I'd feel a sense of divine retribution at work here. But that seems a bit unfair since this is simply the way of the modern world. So I guess there is simply a certain irony that now Borders is going too, but it does make me sad for the book world and for readers.
This is all a run up to share with you the last few books I bought there over the weekend using my last two gift cards. I thought I had about $5.00 worth of credits left and as it turned out I had more than $55.00! How did that happen? I was almost going to forgo one last trip there to avoid the crush of people. (If only they had all turned out once a month like that to shop Borders wouldn't be closing). I understood incorrectly that their stock was all 40% off, but most books were a mere 10%. Sorry, my greed is showing here, but that's the thing about Borders--and chains in particular. I was always under the impression that people wanted cheap books so they shopped at chains, but when I would shop there very few books ever seemed to be really discounted (with the exception of NYT bestsellers). Go figure.
What I ended up buying:
A new (lined) blank book. Last year I used up the blank book I had been using to write down the books I had finished reading (date, title and author). This year I had a flimsy notebook with no aesthetic qualities to it. Now I just need to note down this year's reads.
Cecilia by Linda Ferri which is a novel about Imperial Rome and a lovely Europa Editions book. It was my splurge since it was only slightly discounted. (More books by Italians or set in Italy, please).
But romance books were discounted 30%, and while I don't normally read romance books I do love Georgette Heyer, and she is shelved in that genre. I've added The Quiet Gentleman and The Convenient Marriage to my Heyer stockpile--always a good idea to have a few of her books at the ready!
Mostly I browsed the magazine section. I love looking at magazines but rarely buy them, particularly artsy magazines. They were the deepest discounted items so I felt I could splurge without feeling guilty. I have The New Yorker, Piecework, Stampington's Where Women Create (love Stampington publications), and Marie Claire Idées to read at my leisure.
So, adieu Borders, I'm sorry to see you go, too. The new normal in the book world is constant change and learning to adapt, I see.