Monday, February 14, 2011

The mess at Borders

There's a very good piece by John Mutter about how Borders got tangled up to the point of no return here at Shelf Awareness.

8 comments:

Laura M. Campbell said...

I've been following the Borders mess. I kept my fingers crossed they would make the right choices to avoid filling for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. No such luck. Am I ready to run screaming into the streets in fear of E-books taking over? Not quite yet. It makes finding great independent bookstores still in business more challenging. The journey is just as important as the discovery. Bring it on!

ryan field said...

As long as Borders keeps selling e-books I'm not worried. I love my Kobo more than any other e-reader I've owned, and I average at least two new digital books a week.

And though I'd rather not comment on what Larry Kirshbaum said, I totally agree with Seth Godin's comment.

Shannon Heather said...

Could this be good for libraries?

Just trying to find a brightish side.

Kristin Laughtin said...

That's a great piece. I've been following the news about Borders for some time, but it was interesting and helpful to see the numbers broken down like that. It was very clear.

It still makes me sad to see bookstores disappear, even though I've gotten an e-reader. I still buy some books in print and like being able to browse. Working in a library is helpful for this, but the bookstores usually have the newest books a little faster. Still, I hope the other physical bookstores near me don't disappear anytime soon, and predict that word-of-mouth is going to become an even more important tool for selling books in the future.

Anonymous said...

How sad! I like my local independent bookstore better, but Border's will be missed.

Becca said...

This only upsets me because at 40 minutes away, Borders is my closest bookstore. Followed by Barnes and Noble which is about an hour away.

Amy Ashley said...

YOU READ MY MIND! I swear he blogged about this or something, and I have been searching for this for two weeks! Thanks for posting. I need to share the link with the folks at AW who are not reading your blog or shelf awareness...do not know what is wrong with them.

Jaleh D said...

I wonder if it will be remotely possible for Waldenbooks to survive the mess and be on its own again. I'd hate to see that part go under. It's like something from my childhood fading away.