I also have to say that in general--there are specific exceptions--I don't much mourn these kinds of closings. Because in general--there are specific exceptions--many small bookstores bring it on themselves. The only reason to favor such places is when they offer that sense of being a "great good place", a gathering, or when they offer through specialization and backlist a depth of selections that the gargantuas (independent and corporate) can't offer.
Many small independent bookstores offer neither, but act as if their resulting struggles are a matter of dire community concern. I can think of one independent store in the Midwest with a good selection where the owner went out of his way to insult almost everyone who went in, and refused to help patrons find particular books. I can think of another store, a SF-focused one, in the mid-Atlantic (that probably isn't there anymore--I haven't been to the city in question for about seven years), that was dank and foul-smelling and where the owner's many cats were permitted (encouraged?) to litter the floor everywhere with feces. And I can think of an indie in my very own neck-of-the-woods (NOT the superb House of Their Own, which is a great place, but another store in downtown Philly) that has a mediocre selection of almost everything and no particular compensatory virtue.
So yeah, those stores, if they go bye-bye, I can't especially get too worked up about.
There are a few used establishments which are really special, to be sure, and I'd feel terrible if they disappeared. Acres of Books in Long Beach CA is especially worth mentioning in this regard--better by far than the Strand, and more reasonably priced to boot.
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| 2004 | 1 |
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