The Demise of Borders Bookstores

I find the liquidation of Borders bookstores rather sad.  I had stopped going to the one near my condo some years ago (more on this later), but there was one in Atlanta that was huge that I'd go to periodically (every 5-6 weeks).  I'd regularly spend over $100 just on books, I'd come out with a stack of paperbacks that was heavy and difficult to carry.  But, I'd noticed that they just kept moving stuff around and decreasing the actual floorspace dedicated to books, which didn't seem like a good sign at all.  (I guess not paying the vendors is an even worse sign...)  Then there would be a whole wall dedicated to Twilight merchandise.

The checkout counter was a problem, too.  One day there were about 10 people in line and some old man returning a bunch of CDs and only one clerk.  I'll bet I waited more than 20 minutes.  Most people left the line all together, put down their merchandise, and walked out.  Management like that isn't likely to garner repeat customers.

Anyway, the reason I stopped going to the one near my house was one particular employee.  He was into fantasy novels, but the slasher chick kind (I hate these).  He would follow me through the fantasy section and make recommendations.  It made me quite uncomfortable.  I mean, wow, I'm female and in the fantasy section!  (Sometimes I was there with my boyfriend, which should have strongly suggested I didn't want to be approached by some random male...guess some people are oblivious.)  Though I later saw that I wasn't the only person he followed.  He approached a woman my mom's age and recommended Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  She was not amused.  (Speaking of those Jane Austen spinoffs...I always wanted to see Emma and Axe Murderers and just have the axe murderer get Emma like in the first scene and have the book end there.  I thought Emma was a supremely irritating character in an awful book.)

Anyway, it's sad that there's one less bookstore choice now.  My boyfriend and I used to go to the bookstore nearly every other week, but you can't go to the same one over and over because you see the same books.

I'll leave you with this, an image from a Borders location that was liquidating (courtesy of one of the Failblog sites):