I've been saying "whinging poms" for many years, having been infected long ago by Barry Humphries' The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie.
Also, "whinge" is so much more chewy a word than "whine." Not about the posh at all.
Damn it. I'm so sorry to hear this. I never met him, and only corresponded with him for a couple of rounds a while back, but his writing has pleased and comforted me for many years. Condolences to his friends and loved ones.
Happy birthday, and thanks for all the Particles!
Whoops, I left out that first link, to David Stevenson's version of Ja Da.
Here it is: http://www.btinternet.com/~david.st/b3ta/.
That Flash animation is called "Ja Da," and it's been around for a few years. The song ("Ja Da," since you asked) comes from a Swedish kid's TV show.
David Stevenson did the original Flash animation -- here's the link to the animation from his own site.
Via Google I tracked down an article from The Register that provides explanatory links to not only to the song lyrics but also a short bio about the animation artist.
One thing I hadn't known till I read the Register article was that Stevenson said he was influenced by the work of Neil Cicierega, a 15-year-old homeschooled kid who does Flash "animutations" with found images. Neil won international acclaim with his animutation Hyakugojyuuichi (I'm giving this link rather than the link from Neil's site to help spread the bandwidth around). B3TA did an interview with Neil a while back. And here's Neil's own site. Start at the bottom and work your way up.
I hope y'all don't mind the core dump -- Ja Da and Hyakugojyuuichi!! are in my bookmark list as two things I can count on to cheer me up.
Yeah, this thread has gone on for 228 comments already, but I nevertheless have something entirely new to add. I was looking at my Borderlands email newsletter this morning, and noticed its mini-essay on the future of retail. It related so directly to this thread that I called them up and got permission to reprint it here, in its entirety. (For those of you who know the store, I spoke with Cary; the essay was written by Alan (I hope I've spelled his name correctly)).
Any glitches in line breaks come from me; I did attempt to correct them in preview, but your browser may differ.
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From The Office - Musing on the Future of Retail
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For years the news has been full of material about the way that the internet will change (and has changed) shopping habits. Within the bookselling industry, Amazon.com is the second most often mentioned cause for independent store closures (the most cited cause are the national chains, most notably Borders and Barnes and Noble). In the wake of Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop's announcement that they are closing their doors (1), I've been musing on the probable future of retail quite a bit. This musing is partly in self-defense but is also motivated by a curiosity about what the world of retail may be like in ten or twenty years.
As I'm sure most of our readers know, the overall prognosis for independent retail businesses is poor. The combination of chain stores (i.e. Borders Books, Walmart, and Home Depot), bulk retailers (i.e. Costco and Sam's Club), and internet sales (i.e. Amazon) have been taking larger and larger pieces of retail sales, resulting in rashes of store closures. Consider that in 1950, chain stores captured 30% of retail sales nationwide. In 2000, chain stores accounted for 60% of sales. One sector particularly hard hit is hardware and lumber, where chain stores have gone from having 26.5% of sales in 1990 to 42% in 1997. In a similar 7 year period (1991 to 1998) the sales income for indi bookstores dropped from 32.5% of retail sales to 17%. (2) Conventional wisdom suggests that this trend will continue until the only independently owned retail business left will be in specialty fields so small that they are unprofitable for chains.
However, there is another trend taking place which, if it continues, may save independent retail. The beginnings of this can be seen in the recent troubles that Blockbuster Video and its parent company, Viacom, have been having. The short version of the story is that Viacom is unhappy with Blockbuster's slowing sales (only an 8% increase in revenue for quarters 1-3 of 2003) despite Blockbuster providing 22.5% of Viacom's revenue (for the same period) (3).
And what's being blamed for slowing the sales growth? Netflix, an internet based rental service, and WalMart (4). Leaving WalMart out of the picture for now, consider Netflix's business model. There are no rental fees nor are there late fees. However, there is a monthly membership fee of around $20. For that fee you can use any number of DVDs. But, the catch is that you can only have three DVDs at any
time. When you return one, Netflix sends you another. DVDs are mailed out to the customer and include a postage paid return envelope. It's a great system and I'm a member myself. But, it lacks the convenience of just running down to the local video store, browsing and then grabbing the movie you want.
In short, Netflix isn't going to replace my local video store (Lost Weekend Video on Valencia St., if you're keeping track). If one evening I decide that I want to go see The Wind and The Lion, I'm going to have to head down the street to get it. So, will Netflix put them out of business? If Blockbuster hasn't done it already then it's likely that Lost Weekend's business model and expenses are such that they are relatively stable. Netflix might hurt them at first but probably won't kill them.
But, will it kill Blockbuster? It might.
And, if Netflix does kill Blockbuster,what happens to Lost Weekend's business? I'm betting it will improve. Granted, Netflix is cheaper and has a bigger selection but you have to plan in advance and there's no personal interaction. Essentially what is happening is a shift in the retail equation where two very similar businesses competed head to head (Lost Weekend vs. Blockbuster) to a situation where the businesses competing are actually quite different. Lost Weekend gives you convenience, spontaneity, and a social outlet and Netflix provides low price and a different kind of convenience. My
bet is that there is room for both types of business. But is there room for Blockbuster and their demanding sales goals? I don't think so.
Though it is arguably a big step, this model can be extended to retail in general. In the past, one of the main ways that national chains have competed with independent businesses is in the area of price and selection. Because of greater buying power and other economies of scale (centralized ordering and administration, for example) national chains have been able to offer a greater selection of merchandise and lower prices than independent retailers. But, due to their size, national chains tend to be less efficient and less responsive to changes in the market. Finally, national chains tend to have much higher employee turnover and pay entry-level employees less than independent operations. As a result, customer service suffers and national chain staff are often less knowledgeable.
Finally, due to most chains being publicly traded corporations, there is a significant pressure on them to show significant sales increases every year and even every quarter. Failure to do so can result in dropping stock prices and serious financial troubles. This pressure does not exist for independent stores. If I am making a comfortable living, the only sales growth I need is enough to keep up with inflation. I might like more growth but I can plug along indefinitely with what I have. Thus far the preceding considerations have balanced in favor of national chains, hence the steady attrition in independent retail.
But increasingly now, internet retail is supplanting chain stores in the very areas where they have the advantage. Consider, an internet business has all the potential advantages of a national chain, plus it doesn't have the massive expense of maintaining large storefront locations and a huge pool of employees. Granted, internet retail offers even less customer service than chain stores and there is the pesky shipping delay. But both of those problems can be alleviated. Telephone customer service for internet retail has been, in my experience, far better than I have come to expect from chain stores. And, though delivery time for internet orders is an inconvenience, it must be balanced against the convenience of being able to shop anytime you want, day or night, and having one's purchase arrive at one's doorstep without dealing with driving to, parking at and searching around a huge store.
It would be ridiculous to suggest that internet sales will take all the business away from chain stores. But, remember why Blockbuster is in trouble -- it's not that they aren't making money, it's that they aren't making _enough_ money and more importantly, their sales growth isn't high enough. As internet sales increase those sales will come at the cost of physical retail sales. Independent stores are very familiar with ways of dealing with shrinking sales. But national chains are not and that may mean serious problems for them as internet sales grow. As internet businesses start showing the sales growth that investors want to see and chain sales slow, the money will move towards internet business. Chains may pay attention to this trend and move more and more vigorously onto the net but even this tactic clears the field for independent stores.
It's possible that some chains that deal in bulky and heavy items (lumber and other building materials, for example) may be able to retain their physical stores in the face of internet encroachment but even the high shipping costs for internet orders of these goods may be offset in lower warehousing costs and centralized shipping and logistics.
In summation, the growth of internet retail has changed the equation in a profound way. No longer are chain stores the lower price, bigger selection alternative to independents. Now they are the compromise between independents and the internet. They can't beat the prices, selection and convenience of buying on the net and they can't give the social outlet, customer service and depth of knowledge of a well run independent. As my dad used to say, "It's like all-purpose flour -- some good for everything and no good for anything".
So what happens over the next ten years? My guess is that the chain stores start to dry up, initially in areas that are marginal markets and then generally. They probably won't vanish but they'll fade. And as they do, the customers who either _want_ to get out of the house and shop or must have what-ever-it-is RIGHT NOW or just need some solid customer service will go to their only alternative -- the independent stores who have weathered the current storm.
(1) Full information at http://www.avenuevictorhugobooks.com/
(2) The Fight for Survival by Independent Retailers (USA Today
(Magazine), July, 2000) by James R. Lowry ( http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1272/2662_129/63668115/p1/article.jhtml )
(3) A Blockbuster spinoff for Viacom? (New York Times, February 2,
2004) by Geraldine Fabrikant and Andrew Ross Sorkin ( http://www.iht.com/articles/127680.html )
(4) Video for Sale: Viacom rumored eager to spin off Blockbuster
(VisualStore on-line, February 2, 2004) by staff. ( http://www.visualstore.com/index.php/channel/39/id/7155 )
I see I was unclear in the "bailing out businesses" paragraph -- I meant I might chip in for bills if the business were simultaneously laboring under *other* catastrophic/solvable difficulties.
(Stepping around the homelessness minefield for the moment)
Ayse: Hmn, I'm not with you that "what does a failing business offer to its community that a thriving business in the same space would not offer?" is the question. Too many variables hidden in that sentence.
To start with, we've clearly got at least two overlapping definitions of community floating around this thread: community1 - the people for whom the bookstore is important in the senses I touched on with that excised list, and with whom the bookstore has bonds of good will, and community2 - the store's surroundings, including nearby business owners, the city tax coffers, and people who might nip in and buy a book every once in a while for bored convenience's sake but don't care much whether the storefront sells books or cardigans. And of course in practice the two groups overlap.
As to bailing out businesses, my answer would be different in each case you mention, if I'm part of the bookstore's community1. Bad at doing business? Assuming store staff and I are on good enough terms that I've heard about this or figured it out on my own, I might ask what's up. Is this naïvety or ignorance (potentially solvable) or pigheadedness (screw 'em)? If I had ideas or networking possibilities, I'd offer them. If the business problems stemmed from temporary acute cash problems (e.g., catastrophic equipment failure, physical plant losses that insurance refused to cover, and yes, even bills), I might put in a few bucks if they passed the hat.
Refuses to acknowledge it? Depends on their attitude, probably shop there in sorrow while I can. Refuses to do anything about it? Depends on their attitude, probably shop there less or not at all.
Now, if I were part of community2 and in a position where the store's fate interested me, I'd still try to winkle out whether enough of community1 existed to make it worth helping them get past solvable business problems.
Other considerations abound, e.g., is it better to have a marginal bookstore or a thriving druggie biker bar in your neighborhood?
Ayse: What do badly-run bookstores give back to their communities? (Wishing there were a wider array of emoticons so I could have a visual to display my puzzlement at the question.) Uh, let's see. This varies from store to store, of course, but the roster could include any combination of these: casual meeting places, sometimes actual meeting rooms for community groups, author signings (and subsequent conversations with authors &/or fellow book enthusiasts), bulletin boards for various intellectual & political enthusiasms/housing/local businesses, food/drink, information from the bookstore staff, information from the books themselves, and the occasional comfy chair. I'm probably missing something.
In other words, the stuff that "community" usually refers to, beyond foot traffic and sales tax. I really did think this went without saying; have we all been talking past each other unknowingly?
Anyway, both well-run and badly-run bookstores offer the above. Even if the badly-run bookstore doesn't offer them for quite as long.
I mean the following in a completely non-cynical, non-nasty, no intentional overtones way: it's interesting to compare and contrast the discussion regarding the homeless with the discussion about the business of bookstores.
John M. Ford: Surely there's an SF story lurking in that mysterious storefront with its single business title on display.
To borrow a line from Don Simpson, maybe it was an insufficiently disguised attempt at an alien management takeover.
Colleen, I don't have a personal problem with you (we've never met, to my knowledge; I haven't knowingly seen your writing before this). I haven't "had a bad couple of days." Rather, I disagree with you, and increasingly with your style of discourse.
I have never, if you check my comments (this is what I meant about your not reading me well), made any automatic assumptions that Borders, B&N, and Amazon (that is, online shopping and chains in general) are the sole factors in a small bookstore's demise. I do, however, continue to insist that they are *big* factors. See #3 in Alice Bentley's list of factors, for example. The weight of online shopping and chain bookstores as a factor varies from place to place. I've centered my comments on my own neighborhood, based on what I have seen and heard, including what my local booksellers, papers, and city council have said. After consideration, I find your contention that bad business sense is the real reason my local stores closed to be insufficiently supported.
To repeat a paragraph I typed to you somewhere in the middle of this thread, "But to attempt to shift the blame for bookstore closings onto individual management -- 'rarely have I actually seen a bookstore closing that can be blamed solely on the opening of a nearby chain' -- strikes me as both technically correct yet ideologically filtered." Of *course* there's hardly ever just one reason.
From what I've read here, I gather it's your axiomatic position that a profit-making enterprise may only utilize a particular set of avenues to right itself in case of difficulty. I don't share your axioms -- even a badly-run business gets to ask for help from its community. [Note that I don't defend any subsequent whining if that call doesn't work.] Dan, whether or not it's generally done is immaterial.
I am no-kidding offended by your condescending attempt to recast my comments about the disappearance of my local small bookstores into a supposed unwillingness to look beyond my city's boundaries. "If you don't feel like exploring the Bay Area," my sainted aunt Fanny.
Teresa, for what it's worth, I did check my previous last paragraph with my roommate. "Hey, listen to this, is it too sarcastic?" I asked. He replied, "Well, aren't you writing that in TNH's weblog?" Beat, beat, beat. Then we simultaneously said, "So that's okay then."
Colleen, it's very kind of you to illustrate my points for me. Regarding Gaia "just asking customers to write checks for them," isn't that what other areas of business call "investors," or "angels" or "community donations"? But since they weren't good businesspeople by your lights, they must have forfeited the right to use that strategy.
And regarding the distribution of bookstores in the Bay Area, I gotta tell ya that there's nothing funnier than having you tell me, in the middle of a thread about the problems facing small independent bookstores and the winnowing of their ranks, that I'm just not driving far enough to buy my books and I need to get out more.
Especially since you're throwing around the names of local bookstores and saying you worked there, so you must know the distances involved. Yep, if there are fewer bookstores in the South Bay, the solution is to visit Sonoma County 100 miles north. Note to self: make money fast by starting Book Buyer's Distance Driving Bootcamp.
Ayse/Paula: Re stores closing at 5 or 6 p.m., yes, that is a pain in the butt. Paula, you make it clear why that happens in Boston, although you'd think stores would stay open just a wee bit later to accommodate people shopping right after work. Ayse, the best rationale I can figure for our local shops that close that early is that they get sufficient business during the lunch rush. At least I hope they do.
Dan: Colleen's comments about Gaia were telling in the light of her repeated assertions that Borders and Amazon aren't the real reasons independent bookstores close. I guess only good businesspeople get to ask for help. If a bad, undeserving businessperson asks for help, and gets it, that's wrong; if that business therefore survives to sell tomorrow, that's probably worse, eh?
My space 'n' lighting paragraph arose from people's side comments, as a separate issue I brought up after responding to Colleen -- you know, new material & synthesis. About ambiance: while reading this thread I realized how much of an outlier I must be (not among the readers of this thread, but among the general population). When I go to a used-book store, I go for the content. By me, chairs suitable for giving books a quick once-over are much appreciated, but not required. From past experience I expect mustiness (see someone's earlier comment about telling the age of a book by its smell), rather compressed aisles (so many books, so little space), and low lighting (not required of a used-book store, but extremely common). Other intrepid bookstore divers of my aquaintance openly talk about the thrill of the hunt. They brag about burrowing through stacks of dusty manuscripts in the back of a store to unearth a good-condition collection of Regency glees and catches. That's my crowd, and my set of expectations. Would these expectations work for 99 percent of the population? Probably not. I'm looking forward to my safari at Feldman's in Menlo Park. The bastards might surprise me with wide, brightly-lit aisles, though. What's the fun in that?
Re stores smelling of cat urine: No, thank you, I would not like to make a snide comment about that. Feel free to play through.
Nerdycellist, yes, that's just what I'm talking about. For what it's worth, thanks from a distant potential customer for having toughed it out for so long.
What bugs me is that shafting one's workers is now apparently what investors expect. There's a recent story on The Wall Street Journal Online about how some analysts have downgraded Costco as an investment because they pay their workers a living wage and give reasonable benefits, especially in relation to Wal-Mart. Ah, the race to the bottom.
Brooks: I haven't gone to Feldman's since, um, since it was the previous bookstore on that site. Not sure why, really. Will remedy that immediately.
Colleen: You've worked in many areas of the book business, but you're not reading my comments very well. I already acknowledged that management traits are, of course, a major factor in how well a bookstore survives. But your re-emphasizing your beliefs that everything is just fine doesn't make it so.
"For proof you need only notice that there are plenty of still-thriving small bookstores within walking distance of that Borders in Palo Alto." I don't know what your definition of "plenty" is. However, in case I haven't made it clear, I *know* that area -- I shop there, read the business and city council news there, talk to the staff of the stores where I shop. Which is why I know that you are talking through your hat. Megabooks (the new/used store right next to Borders) is not thriving. They're surviving, and I do my tiny part to keep them afloat. Bell's Bookstore, a venerable used store in business since 1935, is nevertheless not thriving. And that's it.
[I did forget about one store that has "book" in the title, Modernbook, but they themselves bill the store as a "curated modernist boutique," and while they do sell some books, they're more like a museum store/art gallery. I don't know that they're thriving (unlike the other two, I haven't spoken to management); the last time I was there they seemed to have cut back on books and beefed up the art gallery.]
My point is, there used to be more bookstores in Palo Alto (and the rest of the Bay Area), there aren't now, and Borders & Amazon have been big factors, apparently more of a factor than your personal axioms allow you to credit.
It's particularly telling that you slagged Gaia for asking their community for help. Two of my favorite comics-related businesses asked their communities for help recently. They asked their regulars to buy more from them during a set period, to fend the wolves from the door. To the best of my knowledge, that approach succeeded for both businesses. (Tom W. would probably know better than I about Comic Relief.) Why is getting help from one's patrons and friends a bad thing for a business, especially if it helps them get past a rough spot?
It's a shame that Stacy's missed the boat regarding the Web, but that doesn't automatically make them bad businesspeople. (Non-innovative, sure.) Your history of Gaia Books is potentially interesting, but because you've made enough errors in places that I can check, I'm taking your version of events there with a grain of salt.
One more thing: In a later post, you listed a number of good bookstores in the general SF Bay Area region. Did you notice that the stores on your list were almost entirely in SF and Berkeley? (For those of you who aren't local.) The rest of the Bay Area is a little shy of bookstores now. Except for the big chains. Gosh, maybe everyone outside SF and Berkeley suffered a sudden loss of business acumen.
To the several people who've spoken up about being knowledgeable employees in a big chain bookstore, I know you exist, and I salute you. I wish there were more of you. My personal experience in those stores is that there is one knowledgeable person per store -- every once in a while I meet that person -- but as others have said, that person is often unavailable. Or not replaced when they quit; I've noticed fewer staff in our bookstores lately. Good for the business plan, bad for service.
Trying to respond to everything before I run out the door doesn't work: this is a fascinating thread even if I don't agree with everything said. One thing I've noticed is that some people writing here seem to like big, brightly lit stores just for themselves. Some people don't like the used-book smell. This wouldn't have occurred to me as a patron. It's not that I'm immune to the lure of bright, wide-open spaces with shiny things; sometimes I too wander around Restoration Hardware just for the visual experience. But it's intriguing to realize how much of what the big chains offer is atmosphere. (Which they can afford to pay for, as part of a chain.) I'll remember to consult a business lighting expert before I open my storefront.
Colleen: You've introduced a bit of excluded middle, in that I didn't say Borders, B&N, and Amazon were the only reasons bookstores close. Local business conditions and management traits will always play a role. To downplay those three, though, is a tremendous mistake. I guess I oughta be glad that their growth (plus the Web as a whole) led independent bookstores to band together with Booksense and the like. But I still mourn the dead stores at the side of the road.
[Did I mention that I don't really give a damn about survival of the "fittest," when it comes to bookstores? That is, I don't equate "fitness" with "constant growth" or "as rapacious as the big boys down the street." I equate it with "capable of serving the population cheerfully and knowledgeably while making the owners what they consider a reasonable living."]
Re: Stacey's -- Well, that was my previously stated point, wasn't it, that the store's powers-that-be decided to shut down the branches outside of San Francisco to preserve the original store. I didn't mention the dot-com bubble, which I assumed was a given, but certainly that's affected all the bookstores in the Bay Area. I'm aware of Stacey's history; what you're not mentioning is that despite the pre-Borders disadvantages you mention, the Palo Alto store did manage to survive reasonably well, even with the Stanford Technical Bookstore one block away, until Borders and Amazon showed up.
I can't speak to what happened to the branch of A Clean-Well Lighted Place for Books in Larkspur, ~40 miles north of me. But the Cupertino branch closed because of competition from superstore chains and online stores and because of publisher discounts to those superstores. Wasn't there a lawsuit about that a while ago, she wondered ironically.
I'm calling you on your characterization of the Printers Inc neighborhood in Palo Alto, which I've frequented for many years. "Every other store on the block" certainly did not close. Only particular kinds of shopping focused on downtown PA (i.e., the big chains, which the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce fawningly courted, and which have been disappearing in the wake of the dot-com bust and in-house fraud). The coffeehouse was separately owned, and it survives. The customer base was steady. What the owners and the landlord said did in Printers Inc was online competition and higher rent. Here's the story from the Palo Alto Weekly.
In fact, I find your characterization of all these closings to be suspect. Yes, shoplifting and theft by employees exist, and store managers vary in business ability. Independent bookstores aren't temples. But to attempt to shift the blame for bookstore closings onto individual management -- "rarely have I actually seen a bookstore closing that can be blamed solely on the opening of a nearby chain" -- strikes me as both technically correct yet ideologically filtered.
Colleen, from my viewpoint as a reader, *I'm* one of the losers too. There were three or four small &/or specialty bookstores in my immediate area that died when Barnes & Noble came in. The stores probably did have a business plan, but I suspect that plan didn't include a huge chain store opening within a quarter of a mile of them.
I notice that you praise Stacey's as the fine independent bookstore that it is: the Palo Alto branch of Stacey's closed shortly after the Borders opened down the street from it. (The branch further south also closed around that time.) Stacey's had been there for many years. The store's business plan worked as a whole, I guess, since the original store survives in San Francisco, 30 miles north, but for me, the local reader, they're basically gone. The store staff told me it was the combination of Borders and Amazon that did them in at the Palo Alto location. Reading is in my blood, but driving 30 miles isn't.
Could've been worse -- at least Barnes & Noble didn't buy the smaller bookstores and then close them (as Rite-Aid did with our local pharmacies, and it was pretty darn funny, ha-ha, when most of the Rite-Aids then closed too because they weren't making their nut, so we had empty stores *and* fewer pharmacies).
Isn't there some way that the evolution of the bookselling business could work to the benefit of someone who wants to be able to walk in and physically pick up a book, occasionally getting knowledgeable advice from store staff? (Personally, I blame the inventory tax laws, but that's another post.) I buy many fewer Del-Rey books these days -- the B&N staff doesn't know Del-Rey from Del Taco.
Ogre-Eyed & Tim Walters & Mris: Yeah, the character of the store owner becomes paramount in a smaller store, which is why a big, understaffed, impersonal store can seem much better in comparison to a small store owned by paranoid people-haters. But when the owner is a good sort, you get places like Know Knew Books in Palo Alto, where the owner will remember your preferences in used books, hire like-minded staff, and let you put that book of illustrated Toulouse-Lautrec menus on layaway. Kepler's (new) and Wessex (used) in Menlo Park are similarly fine. Don't forget to patronize Megabooks in Palo Alto -- they're the new/used store next to the Borders on University, and they keep Borders-comparable prices on well-known new books while offering reasonable prices on the rest of their new & used stock. I still don't know how they do it. Maybe they're selling crack out of the storeroom -- if so, buy it there too.
Tom W.: Wait, I lied, this is the *exactly* right thread to post your rant in. :)
Mitch W.: My definition of browsing includes "browsing within a category," not just random walks. I regularly browse only within a particular section of a store. As for looking for new books by authors that I know I like, or books and writers that I heard good things about, my experience is that 90 percent of the time, the staff of a smaller store will have a better line on that than that of a large chain.
Not only that, the depth of knowledge frequently available at a smaller store can whittle down my browsing time even within a category, especially when I'm looking for something new but trying to winnow through the chaff. A question I've heard several times in the Other Change of Hobbit, paraphrased: Which authors do you wish you could read all over again? Tom W. (or Dave N. or whomever) mulls over my answer, compares it to what's new and interesting in the store, and directs me to books I otherwise might never have picked up.
The Other Change of Hobbit is closing? Damn. I'd heard rumors of it for a while, including from you guys, but I was always hoping you'd decide to shoulder on. Tom (& Dave), I'm really sorry to hear this. I too wouldn't mind seeing your rant -- this particular comment thread doesn't seem the most appropriate place for it, of course, but somewhere.
As far as used/small/independent bookstores go, while I enjoy the feeling of walking through a huge room surrounded by books, I enjoy the feeling of quirky possibility and personal service even more. Where I live I've watched most of the used/small/independent/specialty bookstores take a dive whenever the book warehouses like Borders or Barnes & Noble appear. (The one exception is a new/used bookstore in Palo Alto *right next to a Borders*, and I have no clue how they survive. ("It's not very easy," they've told me. I buy from them whenever I can, and eschew the hulk next door.)
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