I remember when CDs replaced vinyl in record stores. It seemed almost instantaneous.

I started going to Borders at a mall in Roseville in 1998. It even had Borders - Sacramento (the main city that Roseville is a suburb of) tee shirts. So, automatically, Borders was going to be a super coolplace, I thought. I do miss it. Great selection of magazines that are hard to find elsewhere, plus Ijust love the look of a display of freshly new books. Books are an art form. The writing within them, the cover art, etc.

Also, I'm one who is kind of fascinated by corporate branding, and I thought Borders just had a sleek logo. A good logo system is important to me. It's part of communication.

All that said, when Borders' closure was imminent, I didn't go back. I think I just had some stuff depressing me at the time, and to go to Borders, which was slowly shutting down would have depressed me more. Especially in the final days.

That said, occasionally I am reminded of Borders, and the general state of the big box bookstore industry, and it gets depressing. I've always liked the bigger chain bookstores. starting with Crown Books as a kid.

Ohhh, man....

I love spending time in bookstores.

But I really like online shopping as well, especially when you know exactly what you want to buy (which always seems to be the case when I'm buying stuff these days, sucky economy and all that). Such a hassle to get up, dress up, take the public transport to a mall, try to find a book, finds out they haven't stocked it yet/it's out of stock, go back (public transport) only to try another day.

(November 16, 2013 at 7:37 pm)c172 Wrote: I started going to Borders at a mall in Roseville in 1998. It even had Borders - Sacramento (the main city that Roseville is a suburb of) tee shirts. So, automatically, Borders was going to be a super coolplace, I thought. I do miss it. Great selection of magazines that are hard to find elsewhere, plus Ijust love the look of a display of freshly new books. Books are an art form. The writing within them, the cover art, etc.

Also, I'm one who is kind of fascinated by corporate branding, and I thought Borders just had a sleek logo. A good logo system is important to me. It's part of communication.

All that said, when Borders' closure was imminent, I didn't go back. I think I just had some stuff depressing me at the time, and to go to Borders, which was slowly shutting down would have depressed me more. Especially in the final days.

That said, occasionally I am reminded of Borders, and the general state of the big box bookstore industry, and it gets depressing. I've always liked the bigger chain bookstores. starting with Crown Books as a kid.

Ohhh, man....

Nostalgia can be fun, until someone starts crying. I feel your pain!

Powells here in Portland is a city treasure and is going strong. I have a feeling if Powells goes down it'll go down swingin' and with a lot of people fighting for it.

My major weakness is the sale table at Powells which can usually undercut kindle books by a couple dollars; I often will look up a book on amazon and then check Powells' website to see if there are used copies out there. Then I'll go to Powells to pick up the book and end up leaving with that book, two or three other books and a couple impulse items. Powells is a dangerous place for me to go.

I also am not completely satisfied by my kindle; I find it hard to scan through a book looking for a reference, I can't read my notes on a passage easily and it's hard to look up the passages that I've underlined. It might just be the kind of kindle I have (the older keyboard model, not a kindle fire) but I'm perfectly content to carry on with paper books and relegate my kindle to fiction where I don't feel compelled to take notes.

(November 17, 2013 at 5:01 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: Powells here in Portland is a city treasure and is going strong. I have a feeling if Powells goes down it'll go down swingin' and with a lot of people fighting for it.

My major weakness is the sale table at Powells which can usually undercut kindle books by a couple dollars; I often will look up a book on amazon and then check Powells' website to see if there are used copies out there. Then I'll go to Powells to pick up the book and end up leaving with that book, two or three other books and a couple impulse items. Powells is a dangerous place for me to go.

I also am not completely satisfied by my kindle; I find it hard to scan through a book looking for a reference, I can't read my notes on a passage easily and it's hard to look up the passages that I've underlined. It might just be the kind of kindle I have (the older keyboard model, not a kindle fire) but I'm perfectly content to carry on with paper books and relegate my kindle to fiction where I don't feel compelled to take notes.

I've got the fire. It's pretty great. Wait a minute. You're telling me there's a way to underline text in the kindle?

Powells sounds like a slice of heaven, you're very lucky to have that.

(November 17, 2013 at 5:01 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: Powells here in Portland is a city treasure and is going strong.

Morgan, you lucky dog. I have been to this bookstore (even though I'm from Texas, I have friends in civilized lands) and it made me cream my pants.

If bookstores die, I think I'll die with them. I guess I'm a Luddite, but I just can't do the Kindle. I don't have anything against it; I just can't do it. I LOVE books. I love the different weights and the expectations they bring - a slim volume vs a fat one. I love the smell of the pages. I love dogearing pages. I love rereading a favorite book and seeing my old dogears. I love getting a GREAT book and passing it on to friends, and knowing they'll pass it on, and so forth. I love blurbs and cover art. I love reading in the bathtub and dropping my book in the water and swearing and then having it get all fat as it dries.

I don't think I could survive the loss of the book.

(November 17, 2013 at 5:51 pm)Deidre32 Wrote:

(November 17, 2013 at 5:01 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: Powells here in Portland is a city treasure and is going strong. I have a feeling if Powells goes down it'll go down swingin' and with a lot of people fighting for it.

My major weakness is the sale table at Powells which can usually undercut kindle books by a couple dollars; I often will look up a book on amazon and then check Powells' website to see if there are used copies out there. Then I'll go to Powells to pick up the book and end up leaving with that book, two or three other books and a couple impulse items. Powells is a dangerous place for me to go.

I also am not completely satisfied by my kindle; I find it hard to scan through a book looking for a reference, I can't read my notes on a passage easily and it's hard to look up the passages that I've underlined. It might just be the kind of kindle I have (the older keyboard model, not a kindle fire) but I'm perfectly content to carry on with paper books and relegate my kindle to fiction where I don't feel compelled to take notes.

I've got the fire. It's pretty great. Wait a minute. You're telling me there's a way to underline text in the kindle?

In the Kindle Keyboard there is; I don't know how to do it in the Kindle Fire.

I actually just found out there might be an easy way to reference your notes and underlined passages on the Kindle I have, but I just bought a book on my kindle* and am mid-way through reading it and I don't want to fuck with things too much, lest I lose my spot again. I have the orientation rotated and I keep hitting the button that jumps me to the beginning of the next chapter so I have to keep going back and scrolling through until I find my spot again... stupid technology! This is why paper books rule! - That, and you don't have to charge their batteries...

*I just bought Peter Boghossian's Manual for Creating Atheists, which I had totally intended to buy at the event Powells was putting on for him since he's local (he was doing a reading and a meet and greet), but I totally spaced it after I left the gym. I was so fuckin' mad! So I bought it on my Kindle and have intentions of purchasing a paper copy the next time I'm allowed in Powells. (I have to periodically ban myself from even entering the store - those damn sale tables are just too tempting.)

Quote:Powells sounds like a slice of heaven, you're very lucky to have that.

If you're a book lover and are ever in Portland, check it out; the store is a whole city block and there are, I think, four or five floors... I can't top Zazzy's description:

(November 17, 2013 at 11:36 pm)Zazzy Wrote: I have been to this bookstore (even though I'm from Texas, I have friends in civilized lands) and it made me cream my pants.

It's never made me cream my pants, but then again I grew up with Powells...

(November 17, 2013 at 11:36 pm)Zazzy Wrote: If bookstores die, I think I'll die with them. I guess I'm a Luddite, but I just can't do the Kindle. I don't have anything against it; I just can't do it. I LOVE books. I love the different weights and the expectations they bring - a slim volume vs a fat one. I love the smell of the pages. I love dogearing pages. I love rereading a favorite book and seeing my old dogears. I love getting a GREAT book and passing it on to friends, and knowing they'll pass it on, and so forth. I love blurbs and cover art. I love reading in the bathtub and dropping my book in the water and swearing and then having it get all fat as it dries.

You just sent shivers up my spine. I HATE writing in books, dog earring pages, and giving my books away... I'm the queen of post-its, the repositionable passage marker, and the accompanying notebook. My 9th grade English teacher made us mark up our copies of the book 1984 which broke my heart, and I can't reread that copy because the highlights, underlining and notes are too distracting to me. That's the only good thing about Kindles to me: the underlining without feeling I'm destroying the integrity of the book.

The only book I've ever written in that I didn't feel bad about writing in was the bible. ;p

(November 20, 2013 at 1:10 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: If you're a book lover and are ever in Portland, check it out; the store is a whole city block and there are, I think, four or five floors...

I found several first edition poetry books there- their poetry section is absolutely to die for.
And around the corner, there's a WHOLE SEPARATE SCIENCE POWELL'S. I plotzed.
I love bookstores, and Powell's is about as great a bookstore as there is on this planet. I also love Baumann's rare books on 5th Ave in NYC, but I can't afford anything there.

Quote:You just sent shivers up my spine. I HATE writing in books, dog earring pages, and giving my books away... I'm the queen of post-its, the repositionable passage marker, and the accompanying notebook. My 9th grade English teacher made us mark up our copies of the book 1984 which broke my heart, and I can't reread that copy because the highlights, underlining and notes are too distracting to me. That's the only good thing about Kindles to me: the underlining without feeling I'm destroying the integrity of the book.

The only book I've ever written in that I didn't feel bad about writing in was the bible. ;p

I LOVE seeing other people's underlinings and notes in used books. It's not distracting to me... I wonder why.

I also love going back to my old Norton Anthologies of Poetry from college and flipping through and finding dogeared poems with notes from long-ago classes- poems I haven't thought of in years, or didn't adequately appreciate at the time. I love keeping books (I have an actual library in my house), but I also love giving them away. I would never give away my rare books, but any other book I can replace. Sometimes I'll give away a book and then feel that there is a hole in my library where a meaningful book used to be, and I'll get a new copy. For instance, I just gave my copy of Watership Down to a young reader (and told her to pass it to a friend when she was done), but what's a library without Watership Down? I need to buy another copy.

I love the Norton Anthology of Poetry. I have the fifth edition which more than likely means nothing. But yeah, there's a wine stain in it too - from my ex boyfriend, the night of our first date thought it was the funniest thing ever at the time, plus the pages are still more than readable. That books has a memory forever etched into its pages.