Local Borders is closing

[ellid]

I was never all that impressed with either the store or the selection, but I was in the area last night so decided to check it out.

Here's what I found:

- Decent but small section of hardcover history, all of them beyond my budget until I pay off the timing belt on Sapphy.

- Godawful selection of mysteries, most of which were not actually mysteries but airport thrillers that I wouldn't pick up at the airport.

- One shelf of feminist books in the "Social Sciences" section, all of which I had read years ago.

- Five books of GLBT books in the same area, all of them targeting lesbians.

- A very large section of sex manuals, including several on female orgasms.

- A children's area that looked like the destroyed fields after the locust attack in The Good Earth. It was across the store from the sex manuals.

- Several bookcases of SF, fantasy, and horror, almost all of which either a) I'd read, b) were second or third books of series, not the first book that would make the rest intelligible, or c) concerned vampires.

- A tiny, tiny, tiny rack of CDs, almost all of which were either ZZ Top's Fandango, a 1960s era Dylan concert, or a single lonely Violent Femmes album.


So despite the discounts, I walked out with exactly one book, which I bought because my original copy is so trashed after being repeatedly loaned out and dropped in the bathtub that both covers have fallen off and the paper is sort of disintegrating into its component pulp.

I wonder if this would have been different if I'd come in last Saturday...?

Comments

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Makes you wonder why they're going out of business, or not.

I've found for a while now that about 75% of books they carry in their stores are things I'm not interested in. Add in another 20% that I've already read, and that doesn't leave me with many opportunities for purchase.

As a result, when I'm looking for a specific title or author, I go to Amazon.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I found the same to be true about Borders: by and large, they don't stock books I wish to read, nor have they ever done so. Barnes & Noble remains my choice for large bookstores, supplemented by the local indies (sometimes) and used bookstores.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

hee. I just bought that whole trilogy for the Kindle with my Amazon gift cards from Christmas.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have the whole thing on my Nook. The paperbacks are the loaner copies since I'm the only person in Bergental to own an e-reader so far. Roomie is currently reading them and is just enthralled. If you haven't read them yet, do so - highly recommended.

[xrian.livejournal.com]

I remember being positively impressed by Borders when they first opened, because wonder of wonders, they actually hired people who KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT BOOKS. Most of the other chains I've experienced hire people who have the attitude "I'm just here to stock the shelves and run the cash register."

[ellid.livejournal.com]

The Barnes & Noble in Holyoke has some reasonably knowledgeable staff. The Borders in the mall, the one that's closing? What staff was left did not impress.