I find that extremely frustrating. My wife and I still miss Borders. We used to spend at least one day every other weekend reading magazines at the book store coffee shop, often buying a book or several magazines. But the corporate beast has curtailed our choices.
The local Borders at Danada in Wheaton and behind Oak Brook Center Mall were both busy, and so were their cash registers. We knew a lot of the people that worked there by name - and they knew us. Several of our neighbors were regulars as well. We often alternated from Borders to Barnes & Noble, going to one store or the other on any given weekend, depending on where we were going for errands or to eat or watch a movie in the evening.
Once Borders was swallowed by the Black Hole of Bankruptcy, we were all shoehorned into only Barnes & Noble. It got more crowded there. It's harder now to shop for books, because other people are just over your shoulder constantly, or walking in front of you and the book rack you're trying to look through.
Trying to shop on the e-readers (Yes, we both have the Nook Color) is just not the same. The things are great for carrying around a lot of books, but horrible for browsing, and they just can't come close to the literary coffee shop experience.
If the local Barnes & Noble stores close, which is unfathomable given how busy they are, people will be left desperate for a place to go have a reading day outside the house.
Maybe public libraries should consider filling in the gap, earning some extra money through book and coffee sales. They sure aren't getting funded well after the nuclear financial fraud-down handed to us by Bushwack and the Republicans' come-to-life-nightmare of financial deregulation.
Oh where, oh where, will Literary America be left with to go??
Dan
