19 July 2011 | And Then There Was One

In my town, there are two major booksellers: Barnes and Noble and Borders. And now it looks like B&N will be the king of the hill.

Of course, you need to qualify that because things are tough are tough all over for the brick-and-mortar bookstore. Borders will probably no longer exist past September, and that’s a shame because I like Borders. I never fell too hard for their rewards program since B&N offered better discounts, but it was always my preferred place to shop for physical books.

But even I felt the lure of e-books and just getting physical books from Amazon. My trip visits to Borders went down to zero since last year, although I did make an obligatory stop to one of the stores that was closing. Now, after failing to find an investor and getting publishers to agree to ship product and delay payment, Borders will be history and my town will be a one-store outlet for books.

Mom and Pop bookstores may rejoice, since along with these huge corporations, these shops tended to close up. But I have no idea how even the disappearnce of Borders will help, since it seems more people are being attracted to e-books. The Kindle and the Nook (from B&N) remain huge sellers (although neither company has offered actual sales figures) and according to them, e-book sales are surpassing print ones.

And here’s where the early nostalgia kicks in. I just spent the last weekend ordering a plethora of books, mostly from foreign bookstores, and my place is starting to look like an episode of « Hoarders » what with the piles of books in Greek and Spanish. Despite the easy predictions about the last legs of the « dead tree industry, » I really don’t think printed books are going to become a rarity, certainly not in my lifetime. Carrying around a ton of books on my iPad is really cool, but I think that’s a selling point without very much bite. I may read several books at once, but I don’t read a couple hundred. When people come to my house, they immediately see my bookcases; they don’t ask to see my electronic library. And I have yet to have anyone ask me exactly what I’m reading on those occasions I’ve taken my Nook with me for lunch somewhere. If anything, people are more bound to ask if like using the device and leave it at that.

Well, anyway, I suppose we should not offer up the eulogies for Borders just yet, but when I learned that the store would more than likely be closing, I felt that nostalgia again. It will be sad to see another large chain exiting, leaving only one major one to plug along. (Not to mention all those people who will lose their jobs...). Looks like lazy Sunday book browsing will now be at B&N.