Thursday, June 13, 2019

B & N, “final bastion of hope”?

Nostalgia for Barnes & Noble:

Barnes & Noble and its defunct competitor Borders were, once upon a time, themselves the disruptors and destroyers, big box stores driving mom-and-pop shops out of business. Now, however, Barnes & Noble is the final bastion of hope, the tiny remnant of an industry that has traded cramped stacks delivering instant gratification for distant warehouses offering you anything your heart desires — albeit 24-48 hours later.
I think that a better bastion of hope is an independent bookstore, one in which the emphasis is on books, not toys, not games, not buy-one-get-one-free cookies. As Calvin Coolidge said, the business of a bookstore is books, or should be.

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Whither Barnes & Noble? : A as in Dante : Barnes & Noble & the future

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