Big-Box Bookstores Don’t Have to Die

You could say I have a sentimental attachment to the chain bookstore. Growing up in an intellectually impoverished American suburb, I spent much of my free time in now-defunct locations of Borders and Barnes & Noble. I read garbage, mostly: popular history magazines, Star Trek novelizations, art tomes whose pages I scoured only for frank depictions of naked women. But I had an intuitive sense that all those “wordy” books sleeping on the shelves, whose spines I raced my finger along while traveling between the café and the restrooms, would some day be the building blocks of a real, adult mind, the cathedral-like dimensions of which I could almost picture emerging through the haze of my juvenile enthusiasms. Inside Barnes & Noble, the figures of great literature literally looked down on me. A large wallpapered mural assembled them all in some grand ahistorical café. It was through that mural that I had my first encounters with the brooding fop Oscar Wilde and the fabulously bearded Anthony Trollope. Continue reading at 'Slate'

[ Slate | 2015-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #barnes noble #naked women #building blocks

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"Indie bookselling is back," Vivien Jennings, owner of Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Kan., proclaimed after a "wonderful" holiday season with sales up 11%. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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“The way people buy books today is completely different from how they bought them five or 10 years ago,” Martin Lindstrom says. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Big 5 Publishers Sat Out Deal-Making in 2015

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Indie Bookstores Finish 2015 on High Note

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon, EDC Drive Big Jump in Publishing Industry Stocks

The Publishers Weekly Stock Index jumped 59.2% in 2015 over 2014, propelled in part by a huge boost from Amazon. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Former ABC managing director Brian Johns dies aged 79

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[ The Guardian | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Digiday | 2015-12-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2015-12-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2015-12-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2015-12-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ AdWeek | 2015-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-12-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2015-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2015-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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