Remember small, local bookstores? When I was a little girl, my family frequented a shop on the northeast side of our city called The Book Nook. The children's section was small, but it always had that special book that I needed. The shop was a sensory experience filled with that wonderful book-spice smell, you know what I mean? And, racks of glossy bookmarks with colorful tassels, and containers filled with novely pens and pencils at the counter. More than the bookmobile or the library, that shop fanned the flame of my love affair with paper and print.
In this New England town, there are no small bookshops. There is a Borders and a Barnes and Noble nearby. The Barnes and Nobles is HUGE, and always filled with shoppers. Finding a parking space is nearly impossible on the weekends. The stores is cavernous, with ceilings that expand upward to infinity I think. But, Borders is smaller, cozier, friendlier, and more like my memory of The Book Nook, so that is where we like to go.
It's closing.
I'm sad.
I don't want to shop at Barnes and Noble.
I don't want to order everything from Amazon.
Has the planet tilted? It feels like it has.
We went today to say good-bye and to take advantage of the going-out-of-business-forever-everything-must-go-sale. I am now consoling myself with these:
