This one is from Charlotte, North Carolina.

But let’s lose sight of the big picture. The number of independent bookstores has dropped dramatically over the last decade and we shouldn’t confuse the much fewer remaining bookstores as victory nor the stories about a new indie bookstore cropping up here and there as signs that things are going to go back to what they were twenty years ago.

Also, for many people in poorer and more rural areas, Borders was the only bookstore around – the only place to find anything besides the handful of best selling schlock the local Wal-Mart deigns to display next to camping stoves and candy bars.

I have family living in rural Arkansas and there is no independent bookstore nearby, nor any bookstore, in truth.