The Closing of a Bookstore

Though we don’t have a Borders in my town, where the book business is dominated by an independent bookstore and a few used bookstores, I’m not living in a cave—a cabin in the woods, sure, but not a cave—so I’m aware of the recent misfortunes that have fallen upon Borders.  Still, it didn’t become real until a little over a week ago when I was in Seattle.  I didn’t aim for Borders, as I already had my reading material with me, but I have a pretty hard time walking by a bookstore without going in, much less a bookstore plastered with signs reading “Everything Must Go!  50-80% Off!  Etc!  Etc!”

But I kind of wish I hadn’t walked into the downtown Seattle Borders.  Because it was just plain sad.  Half-empty bookshelves, all sorts of carts and ladders and miscellany littering the floorplan.  This was not a place to browse and think and mingle with other book-loving souls, it was a place going down, fast.  When I got home, I looked it up and discovered that when I went in, that Seattle Borders had less than two weeks before closing.

I made my way over the YA section, and while the gaps made me happy that many books had found good homes, the remaining titles looked so lonely and forlorn I wanted to buy the whole stock.  Actually, I might have done exactly that if I didn’t have a single carry-on bag and a trip across the country just ahead of me.  My bag was so full that I had to sit on it to close it.  Space for a library didn’t exist.  Space for a single book didn’t really exist.  Still, I couldn’t walk out of that store without a book in my hand.  It was a small action, and not one that would make any sort of difference for Borders, but it felt like I was adopting an orphan, giving a book a home, if only just one.

I remember when I was a teenager and Borders was a new thing near my east coast hometown.  My mom and I would go inside and ogle at the books, usually coming out with small bundles each.  I loved the bigness of the carpeted aisles, the tallness of the bookshalves, the crisp cracking book jackets, and the comfy chairs where you could sit down and get lost in a book before you even took it home.  I guess the only reassurance I can find is that the books remain, somewhere, even while what happens inside the walls of a former bookstore will change.  I just hope I’ll have that reassurance for a long time to come.