I admit to being very fond of Borders. Yes, this is hypocritical of me, having spent so much blog space arguing for spending one’s dollars at independent bookstores. And I do try. But when I lived in Hollywood, I used to visit the Borders on the corner of Sunset and Vine several times a week, buying a new book almost every week (god bless Borders‘ rewards program!). I did prefer Skylight Books, but Borders was within easy walking distance.

Borders, admittedly, was not so comfy as Barnes & Noble (the standard decor of a Borders is a little anti-septic). This was exacerbated by the fact that my Borders (the one in Hollywood) didn’t have nice little café to relax in (though there was a wonderful little coffeehouse just a block away where I used to take my laptop and do a little bit o’ work).

There were so many books and authors that I discovered at the Borders: Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins, Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, France Yates’ Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Kenneth Rexroth’s The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth and 100 Poems from the Japanese.

So, if this is the beginning of the end for Borders, I will mourn for it. The one nearest me now – it used to be on 12th in downtown Washington, DC – is gone. There is another, a little further away (though close to my old office) on 18th. It is not as cozy as it could be (as this article explains – though in answer to the question it poses, the answer is yes, we should mourn).

Let me direct you to this article explaining why the demise of Borders is bad for all of us (though he is wrong about the reverberations spreading to Barnes and Noble).

In honor of my fond memories, I have chosen to direct anyone who clicks on the links to any of the books I mentioned to Borders‘ online store.