The news that Border’s declared bankruptcy is flying around both the internet and Twitter at supersonic speed today. It’s not that anyone’s surprised – it’s more of a morbid fascination of watching a giant felled. I’ll be blunt – I have no love for the megastores which left so many dead independent bookstores in their wake. The deaths came so swiftly, and sometimes so suddenly, there wasn’t time to give any one casualty a proper burial. All that could be done was toss them over the side of the ship one by one, throw in a couple thousand roses, and let a few lone buglers play Taps. Now, ironically, here we stand with one of the giants themselves lying on the deck gasping for breath.
I will have to say though that of all the megastores Border’s was, and is, the least onerous – which may very well be the reason they find themselves in such dire need of emergency care. Border’s seemed to show up late to every party – late to get online, late to cash in on used books, late with the e-reader – late, late, late for every important date. Several years ago in this blog’s first incarnation I wrote about the new Border’s opening in Medina and how underwhelmed I was at the prospect. As it turned out, I’m STILL underwhelmed by the Border’s store in Medina with the exception of one employee who runs around like the Energizer Bunny. I don’t know his name, or I’d mention it, but this guy knows books, loves books, is unfailingly cheerful, and even recognizes me when I walk in. I could almost – with the emphasis heavily on ALMOST– believe I was shopping at an indie, at least for a second. I hope they appreciate him because you can spin a lot of book racks and never turn up an associate that good.
The problem with the Medina store, aside from the fact that it’s a bland and sterile desert of wide aisles, few books, and a café so lonely you want to order a latte just to keep it company is that its very existence played a role in the collapse of the West Market Street, Akron store. I have to admit that there was a day when we’d go there on a Saturday night, browse through shelves crammed, piled, and heaped with goodies, grab a coffee at the café, listen to the live music, and invariably go home with at least one book, if not many more. I loved their low ceiling, crowded bookiness and other people did too. So what did Border’s do? They let that store slowly disappear until one day it’s a Hobby Lobby and Border’s Lite in Medina remains in all its slick barren splendor.
Yet all that being said, I almost want to chain myself to the Medina store just to keep it alive and well because the thought of no bookstore at all is too terrible to contemplate. According to the latest news, 200 Border’s stores are scheduled to be axed and I have every reason to think Medina may be one of them. I knew in January when I renewed my discount membership thing that I may never reap its full benefit, but felt almost morally obliged to re-up it anyway. Call it an act of faith, or an act of folly, but I can’t give up on Border’s. Just last week I popped in to buy a novel for a fellow bookseller who was in the hospital having knee replacement surgery and ended up buying one for myself too, again as an act of faith. Obviously, one extra book won’t buy a band-aid for a paper cut on the sickly giant’s thumb, but this store, banal though it may be, is OUR store.
When we moved to Medina in November 1987 the Village Booksmith sold all the latest titles and special ordered anything you wanted but didn’t see on the shelves. Now, twenty-four years later, we have Borders.
Maybe.
*******
P.S. After finishing this post my internet went down for about an hour. When I was able to log back in the list of stores on the chopping block had been posted online. As I feared, the Medina store made the top two hundred.
No comments:
Post a Comment