I’m really sorry to see Borders going into liquidation and closing all their stores. There’s a good article about this on AnnArbor.com. (Ann Arbor is where Borders started out.)
Our local Borders, in Bridgewater, has been around for about 10 years, I think. I’ve spent a lot of time in there, poking through SF novels, computer books, comics, and CDs. I will admit that I’m one of those guys who often looked through books at Borders, then bought them through Amazon. I did buy a fair amount of stuff in-store though, especially when I had 30% or 40% off coupons from Borders Rewards.
There’s a Barnes & Noble at the Somerville circle, so I guess that’s where I’ll be going when I want to actually look at a hard-copy book before buying it.
There used to be a Waldenbooks (or maybe B. Dalton) right here in downtown Somerville, along with two different used book stores. Now, there are no book stores at all in Somerville. (One of the used book stores moved to Raritan, I think, and is probably still in business, but I haven’t checked lately.)
I can’t help wondering if brick & mortar book stores (and even hard-copy books) are on their way out. I like my Kindle and my iPad, and I like Amazon, but I’m not sure I’m ready to start buying and reading everything electronically.
I know what you mean. I just dug into my old boxes of books looking for something someone wanted to borrow and found myself devouring an old series and liking it much better than reading on my iPad — I’d found myself thinking that I really should just get rid of my thousands of old books but no longer.