fuck chain bookstores

i know this all sounds very reactionary. i guess i'm having a curmudgeonly moment.

sales guy: we're showing this in our computer, but none of our stores have it. i guess it hasn't been released yet.
me: i'm pretty sure it's been released.
sales guy: well, if we don't have it, it probably means the publisher is late in putting it out.
me: are you sure your buyer just didn't buy it?
sales guy: [blank expression]

Join us. We are not strong in numbers, but we are invincible in our peevishness.

i buy most books online, but then i buy a lot of philosophy books and even the selection at most independent stores is a joke. it's too bad because browsing philosophy sections is a good way to find cool books.

granted there are some really good used bookstores in chicago, and those can be fun to browse, but if you need a book that's been just published.

i managed to avoid worrying about this for a long time because i had access to university libraries and never bought books, basically.

anyway i related that conversation because it reminds me of the "totalizing" quality of the chain-store experience ... as in "our store = Book Store" and "we don't carry it = it doesn't exist/doesn't matter." how border's and barnes and noble are totally bleached of any idiosyncrasy, so everyone can feel at home in the Book Store.

i know these are totally overfamiliar and trite criticisms of the chain store phenomenon, but i usually am much more sanguine about it so indulge me.

xxpost

I don't see how any bookstore can be expected to have all these specialized small press/university press things sitting around, if they are going to make any money. Maybe I am too accepting, but I've just come to expect that I will often have to special order things (or order them online myself). (There are some independent stores that have selections close to some of my interests, but they aren't near enough for me to visit very often.)

And I do agree with most of your points, I wouldn't shop here if it wasn't for the discount

xxpost

HAHAHAHA I just bought this at Kim's Video in NYC. It was on sale. It's great.

but I realized reading this thread that that will change when I move back to ATX in a couple of weeks. yay austin.

It was, but it's out of business now. Book Soup on Sunset and Vroman's in Pasadena are worthy alternatives.

And meet chicks.

The selection at my local Barnes & Noble is a joke. I've given up looking for anything off the best-seller list there, I just wait until I can go to Borders (which may be terrible, but has a selection about twice as varied as the average B&N in my experience).

i guess this is why people move to new york.

this is out finally? must get...

And now I'm on an anti-Borders tear because the chain refused to stock my book -- from a medium-sized but well-established publisher -- because they DIDN'T LIKE THE COVER. Apparently it's now standard operating procedure for publishers to submit books to Borders and B&N for cover approval or even editorial advice.

TEAR THE ROOF OFF THE SUCKA!

xpost

the newberry library isn't quite downtown, but it's deinitely closer to downtown than hyde park--that's an idea. (p.s. the number of chicago "lurkers" always astounds me. and worries me, sometimes.)

markelby: i can't afford too many new books right now, alas.

You can order directly from the UC Press (or get AdamRL to stop by on his way home)... $3.75 Shipping but no tax to IL.

g!

thats an xpost

Depends on the university and their policies. At UCI, one can get a card as a 'community member' -- ie, no educational affiliation with the school or any other nearby public school (community colleges, etc.) -- at the rate of $80 a year. You can't use ILL and the library databases aren't accessible remotely if you have this card, but you are welcome to check out books up to about 25 at a time, can recall books from others, etc.

xpost what's the prevent you from walking in and reading stuff off the stacks whenever the deuce you want?

i dunno if those things are common or not but jesus.

u of chicago is full of terrible snobs, i went there once. eeee plus you know they must have an inferiority complex springing from midwesternity + not ivy league. their college app was all "WE ARE INTELLECTUALS ARE U INTELLECTUAL ENUFF HOPE SO" and their admissions ppl were all "WE COST LOTS CANT PAY GET OUT OF THE WAY". ok.

I try to visit the indie bookseller down the street, but he never has anything. If I don't mind waiting, I'll go ahead and order something from him. Just as well pay 10% taxes to my municipality rather than paying Shipping for Amazon

Because it's required. We have to greet every shopper within 30 seconds of them entering the music section. This isn't a requirement on the book floor. Of course they've got plenty of requirements to worry about too, just not that one.

You get asked if you're looking for a particular title because another item on our performance review checklist is whether or not we placed the title you were looking for in your hands. If you just ask where a certain band is, we can't do what's required for a perfect review score. So you get asked the particular title question every damn time. Then of course if we don't have it, we have to offer to place a special order for it.

One funny thing I've noticed is the evaluations are graded on a scale of 0 to 100 but anything less than a perfect score is considered failure.

in my experience, 99% of the people i worked with in bookstores cared about books. it's just that they don't give a shit about your book. and really, why should they?

so it's sort of like graduate school...

also, unlike most other demanding customer service jobs, they are guaranteed a wage, among other possible benefits.

this thread is sorta rude.

i really don't want to get into a "how was i rude?" with you hstencil.

http://www.thomdyke.com/files/Thom%20Dyke%20-%20Right%20Book%20Club.pdf

Well I still love getting lost in there, if that's not too much of a cliché. Even if it is, man, I don't care. I heart it.

I failed secret shopper quiz because i overheard a customer asking for a certain book, and went to get it before the other bookseller could figure out what the customer was talking about. I put the book in the customer's hands, but later found out this person was a secret shopper. They hit me for the cardinal sin of not taking the customer to the section. The score was just as bad as if i had taken them to the section and never found the book.

The out-of-date magazine answer probably should have been, "We do not sell out-of-date magazines at discount because the company returns proof of unsold old magazines to the publisher for full credit," even if it's not true. It's the lazy man's escape route. The amount of customers we get demanding discounts for 'old' magazines is unbelievable. We actually do have too many old magazines on the shelves. The warehouse is not exactly timely in getting some of the magazines to the stores. Depending on the publication, a three month old magazine can be right out of the tote just hours before a customer lays hands on it. More often though, the customer's idea of 'old' is just bullying bullshit. I go to every bookstore in town, and know people are conning me when they claim the next issue is out at the competitor, when on a few occasions i was at that same other bookstore hours before, and that issue damned well was not in the shelves.

We also get lots of people deliberately damaging books so that they can get a discount on it.

The amount of things that a sales person is required to know in a bookstore as opposed to many other retail jobs is absurd. The starting pay is at least a dollar less than anything else in the particular nasty little strip mall that we're in, and more often, two dollars less. Think of what is expected from someone in a clothing store versus a clerk in a bookstore facing a lot of parents coming in to describe books on school reading that their kids cannot bother to remember, or prematurely senile middle-aged people with vague desciptions of what books have been featured on television the previous night. In that strip mall, only the specialists in the hardware store have to remember as much stuff.

The customer service computers of the chain i work for are useless unless one knows the EXACT wording and spelling of the title or author. Few managers at bookstores seem to grasp the fact that the only way to get a decent staff is to hire desperate or pretentious college students who major or have degrees in the humanities, not any goober who has some experience as a cashier.

I have a lot of contempt for chain bookstores, despite working in one. I apologize for them sucking and how anyone was wronged or frustrated, but feel compelled to defend certain irritating things people who work at bookstores do. Sorry.

Indie bookstores can and will survive as long as they do their homework, adopt niches and specialize. I can think of one nameless bookstore that doesn't even have a good grasp of the subject matter they claim to represent. Instead of 'shadowing' the Borders', they should provide what Borders can't. If they can't figure out how to do that, they're not serving their constituency, so screw 'em. Many of them are benefitting greatly from putting their stock online, too.

B&N sucks, I must say. They have a reputation for sucking. But Borders is good at what they're supposed to be good at, especially in the suburbs.

i filed a complaint, of course.

when i went there yesterday a fellow was tagging magazines or something. he asked me if i was in his way and i told him i didn't think so. he then asked me what i was looking for, to which i said "rolling stone". he reached down and handed me the latest copy.

i gave him 10/10 on my customer satisfaction sheet.

"the only way to get a decent staff is to hire desperate or pretentious college students who major or have degrees in the humanities, not any goober who has some experience as a cashier."

i don't really agree with this at all.

what is borders supposed to be good at? how are they different from barnes & noble?

we don't have a borders around here.

That's for damn sure, and the consumer benefits. Might I suggest the good folks at Brindles, for instance?

I'd be annoyed at you, too!

i don't really agree with this at all.

curious as to why you think this.

The chain i work for now is not B&N or Borders. With a few notable exceptions, most of the other people hired whose only experience was running a register at Walmart or McDonald's have been disasters, lightning rods for the wrath of every disgruntled customer. No matter how well-meaning and courteous the person was, they would get flak over not knowing enough to help the customer, getting called stupid or lazy when they simply didn't have a broad knowledge of books.

i admit that i'd probably be irritated if someone didn't have the cash to pay for fifteen books if there was a long line of customers. Otherwise, it's no big deal.

they follow every flighty trend they see a dime in, and are usually behind the curve, be it chick lit or christian fiction. Higher-ups are still puzzling over why Christian inspiration sales are down, not seeing to realize lots of that last year was tie-in to the movie "The Passion". They might as well wonder why we are not selling as many LOTR bookmarks now that the entire LOTR movie trilogy has come and gone.

doesn't seem it should matter to the cashier whether there are lots of customers or not. the customers, on the other hand, have reason to be a bit upset.

i found it somwhat amusing.

as for the register-ppl, how does a humanities degree give you a truly broad knowledge of books? a lot of people are looking for self-help, economics, children's books, sex books, religious books etc in addition to philosophy, literature and history, (and our college grad would've presumably only specialized in one of these). i don't see how it would make a whit of difference, really.

You're kidding on the rest your post, right?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article3593075.ece

The credit crisis engulfing America’s banking system yesterday threatened the independence of Borders, the retailer of books and DVDs, which put itself up for sale and admitted that it had been forced to seek emergency funding.

Borders, which yesterday reported annual sales of $3.8 billion (£1.9 billion) for 2007, said that it had appointed JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch, the Wall Street investment banks, to “explore strategic alternatives”, including a sale of the entire company or a break-up.

George Jones, chief executive, said that he had been trying to secure new funding but that “the current credit environment had made many of these alternatives prohibitively expensive or entirely unavailable”.

Maybe if Border's sold DVD's for less than $30 for a standard new release they'd keep more customers! Or had employees that gave a shit about helping customers! Or actually shelved the boxes of new releases on time!

But seriously, I will kinda miss Border's if they go away. Out here in the suburbs they are the only alternative to Best Buy for buying music and, even with their awfully inflated prices, they have about four times the selection of Best Buy - especially when it comes to jazz. And if you join the rewards program thingie, you get constant coupons that help bring down those prices.

eisbar otm upthread. I distinctly remember walking into a borders for the first time in the late 80s and finding books I'd been searching out for years, books I'd never come across in any independent bookstore or library; iceberg slim! georges bataille!

last week's real world example of borders having a better selection than b&n: on a whim I went looking for a copy of the lykiard translation of lautreamont's maldoror. b&n had zero copies of *any* translation of maldoror, but borders had the lykiard.

the potential for borders to be bought by b&n is sad. hopefully b&n will pass and somebody who believes in borders business model will pick them up and make another go at it.

Does Barbara's not count as a major independent bookstore in Chicago?

(I'm responding to Am's first post.)

(And not that I think that they would even have the book, I'm just saying.)

last week's real world example of borders having a better selection than b&n: on a whim I went looking for a copy of the lykiard translation of lautreamont's maldoror. b&n had zero copies of *any* translation of maldoror, but borders had the lykiard.

whoa creepy i just bought a copy of maldoror, on a whim, at borders. i don't remember who the translator was... there were two available!

i understand the "fuck the chain bookstore" feeling. but 10-12 years ago, border's was a GODSEND if you lived deep in the suburbs (well, in central jersey anyway). i mean, yeah you had the princeton and rutgers bookstores which were both great. but both were schlepps and otherwise, unless you were willing to go to NYC or philadelphia, you had to make do w/ crappy mall-store waldenbooks or b dalton's. while there were at least 2 borders within easier driving distance from home.
-- Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, March 14, 2005 10:13 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

micawber's books! (RIP)

I really don't understand how Border's can be going through hard times. Every time I go there it's always packed. Do people just hang around in the store and leave without buying anything? Does. Not. Compute.

^ This is what I usually do. It's a place to kill time in a business park while you're waiting for your mates to show up before you head off to the cinema or Frankie and Benny's.

Since Miami has just one indie bookstore and is rather inconveniently located, I go to Borders most often. Not only is their coffee superior to B&N's, but the employees are actually more helpful than Indie Bookstore's (where I worked for about three years earlier in the decade). This particular Borders has just about every Henry James novel too.

I really don't understand how Border's can be going through hard times. Every time I go there it's always packed. Do people just hang around in the store and leave without buying anything? Does. Not. Compute.

-- Mr. Snrub, Monday, March 24, 2008 6:24 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I worked at Barnes & Noble briefly right after college, and this was the case with many, many people. Be it nannies bringing kids in to make a mess of the children's room, the homeless, high school kids coming to read manga after school, or just itinerant browsers. I'd wager there was a sale one out of every twenty people who walked into the store, maybe less.

The other ones were too busy either leaving National Geographic Africa/sex books in the bathroom stalls, or asking if we had a photocopier they could use so they didn't have to pay for the information they wanted from books.

I worked for Borders for a long time (until last fall) & can tell you that their wounds are mostly self-inflicted. Trying to compete with B&N led them to overextend themselves, opening far too many locations--where I work now there are two Borders super stores within walking distance. Some of the stores, especially the urban ones, are cash cows that keep the poor performance stores afloat. Of course no extra resources, in terms of payroll to hire extra staff, is given to the better performing stores, so those ones end up looking terrible, having
less stock on the shelves (no one to put it out) and there is bad customer service and high turnover due to staff frustation.

They've spent millions on lame promotional ideas and waste a lot of time on satisfying the whims of their ever-changing CEOs. The centralized planning is idiotic--everytime my store came up with a localized solution to a localized problem a corporate type would tell us we had to conform to the practices of every other store in the company. We had hundreds of boxes of books and CDs sitting in the back room waiting to be shelved but were always told to focus instead on
flushing the books to the edge of the shelves, work that would be undone by customers within minutes.

The shoplifting problem was horrendous--thousands of dollars of merchandise a day walked out of there. And when the theft numbers came in each year after Inventory they'd send around a "Loss Prevention" Nazi to interrogate the staff.

That said, Borders has always had a much better title base than B&N and better than that of many independent bookstores. They recently even undercut that, announcing they will be reducing their title base so that they can shelve more books as "face-outs" the same way B&N does.

the margin on books is quite small, which is why borders has gradually been filling up with ever more sideline crap. and obviously cd and dvd sales have their own issues.

borders' business model has long been predicated on expansion. it's easy to borrow money to open a new store, but less so to fix existing problems. after fifteen years of expansion, they've already filled the best locations and their subsequent stores don't do as well or cannibalize from existing stores. they used to have a policy of signing ten-year leases on their stores -- dunno if that's changed -- and i'm curious how they've handled the no doubt expensive renewals at the stores in the first wave of expansion.

in the late nineties, they poured a ton of money into opening a website to compete with amazon only to give it up and partner with them (though i think they're back on their own now). either way, they lost that one.

on the plus side, as the economy at large goes into the toilet, the quality of the average bookseller is likely to improve.

micawber's books! (RIP)

-- max, Monday, March 24, 2008 1:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

The replacement store, Labrynth, seems pretty good. My wife's favorite author is Iris Murdoch, and they had just about everything she's ever written. My wife said she's never seen that in any other bookstore. My sister-in-law, who we were visiting there, said she overheard the owner of Labrynth saying "Oh God, it's such an intellectual desert here. I've just got to get back to New York."

Their philosophy and psych sections were pretty wau.

As I recall though, Borders put out a statement similar to this a few years ago. They've had a number of different owners (including K Mart) over the years. It doesn't mean they're about to go the way of Tower.

<I>My wife's favorite author is Iris Murdoch, and they had just about everything she's ever written. My wife said she's never seen that in any other bookstore. </I>

Not to be all dickish, but you should look harder. I'm pretty sure your average B&N will have this. Certainly the one I worked in as well as the one near my mom's house in the suburbs also have plentiful Iris Murdoch. It's sort of the same thing as the Henry James comment upthread--many large bookstores fill their shelves with the near-full output of celebrated writers, simply because they have the space to do it. Not saying it's a bad thing, but it's not all that unique. Stores need to have a high selection so that the consumer doesn't go home disappointed and buy it on Amazon instead.

of course, the Murdoch mostly just sits there while sales numbers come from the Grisham and Dan Brown and whatever Oprah or the NYT is shilling this week/month.

Yes, at times Borders will have a whole bunch of cool books--like an influx of Dalkey Archive or Green Integer press stuff--but if it hasn't moved in a few months it gets sent back.

fuck a labyrinth, i <3 micawber. i think the new one is just an outpost of the u-store anyway.

not dickish at all Ian. But I think the selection was pretty high for a relatively small store - I don't just mean they had six or seven Iris Murdoch titles, I mean they had what looked like just about all of her in print material.

micawber definitely had atmosphere though, not to mention the used section

b&n's remainders > borders' remainders

I mostly buy stuff at independents and online, but I remember when Borders first opened in my city 6 years ago it was very cool: much, much bigger selection of books than any other place around. Ever since then, though, the books section has been shrinking and shrinking until it's now significantly smaller than it used to be. Same with music (and it's all expensive), and the DVDs are all extremely expensive too. The only thing that makes it worth ever going there is the email coupons they sometimes send out (40% off, 3 for 2, that sort of thing). It used to be good for US imports, too, but not any more.

Not to pick on the Iris Murdoch poster, but Murdoch is one writer of whose work I've seen plenty in chain bookstores: The Sea, The Sea, The Black Prince, The Black Prince, etc.

As I recall though, Borders put out a statement similar to this a few years ago. They've had a number of different owners (including K Mart) over the years. It doesn't mean they're about to go the way of Tower.

-- President Keyes, Monday, March 24, 2008 7:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

True. Which is why if I were a smart man I'd buy shares of Borders stock like crazy since it's really cheap right now. Like seven bucks a share.

Some commentary (scroll down) on the book publishing industry post-Borders collapse.

What Are The Consequences - If Borders declares bankruptcy and closes there will be a cascade of effects. Publishers will lose a great deal of money owed to them. The five major US publishers (Hachette, Macmillan, Peterson, Harper and Bertelsman) and the the big distributors (Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Diamond Books, and so on) will be able to weather it without too much disruption but all the smaller publishers in the country are going to be hurt. Many of them may be hurt badly enough that they'll close. Publishers closing has the immediate effect of reducing the number of books that get out to the consumers and also reduces the number of places that authors can sell books.

These effects will be amplified by the loss of bookstore shelf space nationwide. Here's a simple equation -- the ability of a publisher to purchase a book from an author and print it is determined by the number of copies the publisher believes will sell. The format (i.e. hardcover, large-size softcover, or paperback) of the book is also determined by expected sales. You would think that the number of copies that will sell is simply based on the number of readers who will buy the book but it's not that simple. For a reader to buy a book, they have to find it and the most common way that readers find a book is on a shelf at a bookstore (though word of mouth and publicity are also important). If there are fewer shelves and fewer stores in the country, fewer books will sell. So, in the immediate aftermath of Borders closing, fewer books will be sold in the US. Perhaps a great deal fewer -- remember, of every six copies of a book that are sold anywhere in the country, Borders sells one of them.

So, on the heels of financial losses as a result of a bankrupt Borders not paying its bills, there would also be a potentially major decrease in book sales over all. Which would cause more independent publishers to go out of business. Consequently even fewer books are published, authors have more trouble selling their books and readers have less choices in reading. It's also possible that print runs would get smaller, which means less money for authors. Less income from writing means that some authors won't be able to spend as much time doing it, which also means fewer books out there for readers.

Which brings us to the final consequence -- readers' access to books. Borders and Barnes & Noble have been so successful over the years that there are many towns and cities in which the only bookstore is either one or both of those chains. If Borders closes, there are many towns that will be without any bookstore of any sort or, if they do have a bookstore, it will be Barnes & Noble. In the first case, the residents will have the choice of either ordering books on-line or driving long distances (in these days of four-dollar-a-gallon gas) to get to a store. In time, a local store might open or B&N might move into the area but it could be a long time coming, if at all. In the areas that have a B&N as well as a Borders things will be better but there's a catch - the buying decisions for chain bookstores are made at the corporate level. In other words, for any given section (like SF and fantasy for example) one person decides for all the stores not only what books are going to be stocked but also how many copies each store gets. As far as I know, the buyers for the chains are all nice people and they really care about books but they are still individual people with all the assumptions, biases, and foibles that you'd expect.

Borders and Barnes & Noble have been so successful over the years that there are many towns and cities in which the only bookstore is either one or both of those chains.

There are plenty of places (in the US) with just a B&N, not many with just a Borders.

That is true. Also they seem to be forgetting about the international network. That said, the portents in this story are sad, sad, sad.

Maybe Ursula K. LeGuin will write another Harper's story like she did a few months ago and end up having her own 'Notebook' type segment each month called 'Fuck Publishers, Fuck People Who Don't Read, and Fuck You Too.'

micawber's books! (RIP)

-- max, Monday, March 24, 2008 1:32 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

oh no!

Recently visited the Borders in Adelaide: they've just put up the price of EVERY book by 10%. Fuck them.

above the price on the back cover?

I can't believe I missed a thread that was partly about the Seminary Co-Op bookstore.

btw i live a few blocks from these guys http://www.magersandquinn.com/

above the price on the back cover?

Yep, but completely obscuring the printed-on price tag with their own stickers. Sons of bitches.

On a related note: Out of Town News in Harvard Square not planning to renew its lease on Jan. 21.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/11/20/plan_to_shutter_newsstand_pierces_heart_of_harvard_sq/

http://i.pbase.com/v3/62/579762/1/46623268.HarvardSquareKiosk.jpg

isn't that sort of unprecedented to sell above the cover price? one of the huge advantages of chain bookstores is that they've been able to do deep discounts (on best sellers at least) because of their huge bulk orders from publishers.

fucckkkkkk

First the Wursthaus, now this!

The Glasgow Borders is fucking appalling since it was bought over by venture capital early this year. They've replaced the classics, drama, poetry and foreign language section with Crime. 12 rows of Crime. The basement is now a Game, and the rest of it is Airport-tastic. Cunts.

that's an awful lot of crime. perhaps a bit more than necessary....

The replacement store, Labrynth, seems pretty good. My wife's favorite author is Iris Murdoch, and they had just about everything she's ever written. My wife said she's never seen that in any other bookstore. My sister-in-law, who we were visiting there, said she overheard the owner of Labrynth saying "Oh God, it's such an intellectual desert here. I've just got to get back to New York."

― Hurting 2, Monday, March 24, 2008 3:34 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ive warmed to labyrinth a lot but i still miss micawbers like a motherfucker

Funny thing, even San Francisco is giving me the heebie-jeebies in terms of books...so many places, and most of them have little to no poetry, or only the large compendiums of 20th c. philosophy. an exception is Books & Bookshelves (but i loathe the Castro) and Modern Times (which is fucking great, for the most part). i would hike over to SPD in N. Berkeley but jesus, such a long walk and such a confusing warehouse full of books!

even City Lights is infinitely worse than I expected.

but this is, again, only in terms of my particular interests. the Poetry section at City Lights is cluttered with bullshit Beat-era and SF renaissance stuff whilst simultaneously claiming a 2005 winner of the Yale Younger Poets as an 'emerging voice.' so out of touch it hurts me inside.

Oddly enough, I've been to the Glasgow Borders, on a rainy day about 10 years ago.

'SPD' = serendipity? that place is awesome but peter is one grumpy mofo. and yeah, the disorganisation is stressful: lots of times an author will have two or more separate sections.

I found a great (by Glasgow standards) second-hand philosophy section in a SF bookstore, fucked if I can remember where it was though.

Waterstones on Sauchiehall Street is great though, so who needs Borders?

ppl who think waterstone's on sauchiehall st has also been shite since the sale.

Re the jacking-up of prices: The reason, according to someone who works there, is that, "We're the only bookshop in Adelaide that allows extended browsing, so the cost of that needs to be included in the price of the books." As an explanation, this is a priceless combination of bullshit-lies and sheer nonsense.

the cost of browsing fuck off

ppl who think waterstone's on sauchiehall st has also been shite since the sale.

― stet, Thursday, November 20, 2008 11:24 PM (Yesterday)

Not a fan? I'm interested to know why. I always find an interesting selection of fiction there. I like the tables of 'European Fiction', 'American Fiction' etc. and the little genre and country specific displays. Lots of intriguing stuff I've never heard of. I spend a fair number of lunch breaks up there.

I'll second that - I was in yesterday, and the tables of Contemporary Classics and European Fiction have some really interesting looking books I might not look twice at otherwise - or even be able to find! I do wish they'd update their "Staff Recommends" display on the first floor though...

On that note, krakow, can I recommend Novel 11 Book 18 by Dag Solstad (translated from the Norwegian) on the European Fiction table.

Strange read, but well worthwhile!

i hate not living in england/the us. now i visited every fucking bookstore to find "the beautiful and the damned" but didn't find one copy. gah. guess i'll have to order it from amazon.

I'll stand up for Borders! I grew up in the suburbs and before Borders opened what we had was Waldenbooks and B. Dalton in the mall. And all of a sudden there was a giant bookstore that sold foreign books, contemporary poetry, technical math books, literary magazines.... stuff that COULD NOT BE FOUND previously. It was a big deal and I'm grateful to this day.

By the way, "The Beautiful and Damned" stinks and if the chain stores aren't carrying it you should laud them for using a little discretion instead of automatically filling shelf space with the complete works of a famous name.

However, I am on board with the sadness about the loss of Out of Town News and Micawber. I like Labyrinth fine (at least, the one on the Upper West Side) but it's painfully snotty, and it's not at all surprising to hear it's fun by fuckwits who say things like "Oh God, it's such an intellectual desert here. I've just got to get back to New York." I agree -- people like that have got to get back to New York!

agreed that the borders on buchanan st is godawful - horribly laid-out, ratty looking stock, high prices on DVDs/CDs and never any good offers or bargains. the magazine section is its one saving grace (that and the fact that it's open late.)

waterstones on sauchiehall st is certainly better - their 3 for 2 offers on graphic novels are gd

The Beautiful And Damned isn't Tender Is The Night - indeed it's pretty much a dry run for TITN - but it's still a fascinating read.

I remember when Borders opened in Oxford Circus ten years ago (or thereabouts) - it looked good, felt good and its music and philosophy sections in particular were terrific.

Then it slowly started going downhill; you could see the widening spaces on each floor as the stock reduced and narrowed. Now it's the least attractive shop of its type and size in central London (except possibly for the arguably ghastlier branch in Charing Cross Road which succeeded a perfectly decent Books Etc.).

So these days I stick to indie and used bookshops exclusively.

Yeah, that's their business model--start big and impressive, drive out other bookshops, then cut everything back when there's no competition and jack up the prices. Nice to know they're in financial trouble.

Dear Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop Customers,

We believe there is wisdom in knowing the appropriate time to say farewell. After 82 years of bookselling, it is with immense sadness that we announce the closing of Milwaukee's own independent Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops. Our doors will be permanently shut as of Tuesday, March 31st, 2009.

For eight decades, we have remained a family-owned business. Harry and Reva Schwartz, followed by their son A. David Schwartz, guided the independent book business from 1927, when Harry opened his first store in the back of a Downer Avenue beauty parlor, to today's age of computer publishing and the surge of Internet shopping.

Unfortunately, profound shifts in how people shop and equally great changes in the book industry left us and many other well-established bookshops with dwindling sales. Although David Schwartz successfully led us into the new century fighting for our ground, the winds of change became gales -- and with David's passing in 2004, we were a wounded business. The most recent economic crisis was, for us, the final blow.

aww, i loved these stores when i was a kid in milwaukee.

Prepare yourselves for Borders disappearing this year as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/business/media/13book.html?_r=3&ref=business

I'm shocked that Borders is (still!) second to Barnes and Nobles in sales; it's by far the better chain. Its customer service is superior, and I always find an obscure book.

you can also more easily find obscure CDs on their website, but I guess it's the Grisham/King/Rachel Ray set that keeps these big boxes going...

Good idea

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090505/ap_on_en_ot/us_borders__make__books/print

Yeah except it's still in a Borders.

Hmm, basically trying to cross the "Oprah Book" effect with the "Staff Picks" shelf. I dunno - Oprah has an incredible forum with an attentive audience, and we never used to move that much stuff from the Staff Picks shelf. Enough to justify having it, esp. to get sleeper books moving again, but a lot of times I think it was just to give ourselves something to do that felt individual and creative. (Sort of like the hours spent on silly drawings in the windows promoting Harry Potter or whatever - like anybody needs to be reminded that Harry Potter books might be found at a bookstore! It's just fun to do.)

fuck-chain bookstores

^^^word
can't remember the last time I bought something from one

"It's almost as if Borders is going back to its roots as a personal, hand-selling organization," Albert N. Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University and a leading industry analyst, says. "It's a very good marketing strategy and a very positive sign."

i dont know if it's "almost as if" that's happening albert n greco so much as thats "actually what is happening"

almost

Except your crappy staff are "hand-selling" some boss-mandated book rather than something they personally give two shits about.

It can't miss!

Barnes and Noble in trouble, it seems.

oh NO who will service my NOOK now

Weird news for Foyles:

Foyles is to relocate its world famous Charing Cross Road bookstore 15 yards down the road to the redundant Central St Martin’s School of Art.

Its present landlord, Noved Investment Holdings, announced this morning that it had bought the 74,780 sq ft art school at 107 to 109 Charing Cross Road.

The school, part of the University of the Arts, will relocate to new premises in King’s Cross in August.

Noved will begin developing a three-floor bookstore by the end of the year, for occupation in two years’ time. Hines, the US developer, will develop apartments above the sales space.

The current store, owned by Noved, at 113-119 Charing Cross Road, where Foyles has sold books for more than 100 years, will be redeveloped.

this is somewhat explained by the fact the Noved IS Foyles; they're a property investor first, and a bookstore much much farther down the list. i think the book operations actually make a loss.

hard to believe since they're so expensive

death watch for St Mark's in NYC? Steep discounts etc...

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160211/east-village/marshals-auction-scheduled-for-st-marks-bookshop

http://gothamist.com/2016/02/09/st_marks_books_fire_sale.php