Such a sad day.
I felt like Homer Simpson eating Pinchy.
Lucy and I were wandering through the shops, midway between the post office and the sushi shop, when I came across this:
People were thronging in and out of the store.
I couldn't help myself. I had to go in.
I have such an insane book obsession, it's quite ridiculous.
Like, when I moved countries (all four times) and every other move I have done in my life (nearly 20 now), the biggest collection of boxes contained books. In my last downsize, I released all the novels I was carrying - you know, classics, like Jean Auel's foursome (which is now a five or sixsome) "Clan of the Cave Bear" series, everything written by Bryce Courtenay and Anne Rice, and of course, Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series. So now my collection is made up of reference works under the genres of nutrition, fertility, birth, wholistic health, women's health, parenting, medical science, finance, craft and way-out-there-freaky-hippy-goddess-kinda-stuff (my private not-on-display collection).
Knowing the layout of this store (and every bookstore within my immediate vicinity), I went straight to the following sections (in order) to source some potential gems left behind by the masses before me: nutrition and health; fertility and parenting; craft; finance; hippy; science. Lucy took off to the kiddies section and found herself a gem on oceans and whales. And I found these:
And I am not ashamed to admit, at the checkout, I actually put two books back on the shelf that I *knew* was mere consumerism because I could - not because they were *actually* needed. So all up, I spent just over $40 on six books that should have cost me well over $150.
The woman that served me was bopping to the music as she processed my credit card and all I could think of was "aren't you sad???" But of course, no, why would she be? She most likely has another job lined up, because this move has been a long time coming now. And she is (most likely) no way invested in the prosperity of this store - or any book store like it.
Now, I can't say I'm completely without blame here! I buy from Book Depository, Fishpond - hell, even Amazon (with their $5 per book shipping costs). I know that, perhaps, if my peers and I had continued to purchase in-store, this chain may not be going out of business. Money talks, bullshit walks as they say. But I'm still sad, nonetheless. I'm still sad that there is one less chain of bookstores in a town near you, available for hours of luxurious time wasting, page leafing, ink sniffing and surreptitious over-the-book-sneaky-peeking.
A&R, I'm truly, genuinely saddened your doors are closing.
But always grateful for your parting gifts.
And in other news, book depository gets swallowed by Amazon. Is that the end of our free shipping anywhere in the world? *le sigh*.
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