Why I'll Miss Borders

The demise of Borders Books portends good things for the economy, but the news is still sad. I don’t think I’d be where I am today, if it weren’t for Borders.

I don’t think I’d be where I am today if it weren’t for Borders Books. Although I think that the chain’s demise actually portends good things for the economy as a whole —I’m actually quite sad about it.

Here’s my story: As a college undergraduate, I wrote a short defense of Borders, which ran as a column in the newspaper where I was then interning.  My argument: the “big two” chain booksellers (Borders and Barnes and Noble) carried many more books than independent booksellers and provided a better environment for reading. By carrying more books overall, they actually expanded the market for books both bestselling and obscure. Before the severe recession put a crimp in just about every area of economic activity, the growth of mega-booksellers had coincided with the growth of “mid-list” literary fiction, quality non-fiction, and local history that they were somehow supposed to squelch. (Neither chains nor independent booksellers sold any of these things for altruistic reasons, but big chains’ vastly superior creditworthiness let them hold much larger inventories of slow-moving items than independent booksellers could.)

All this still holds water. Arguments like Telly Davidson’s about how larger chains hurt the quality of literature simply aren’t supported by the facts. Had their growth not coincided with the Internet’s, it’s true, the big booksellers could have perhaps squelched publishing by refusing to carry titles but, of course, Amazon (and for that matter, the websites of the big booksellers) caryy everything.

Back to my story: The editor of a now-defunct conservative magazine noticed the piece and asked me to do a longer version of it for him.  It was a strange fit since I considered myself a left-winger at the time and had helped organize protests against the Republican Contract With America. Anyway, that assignment turned into more and upon graduation, at the editor’s urging, I searched for a job in Washington even though I had several doctoral program offers in hand. I landed a reporting job, ended up staying in town and to become an editor at that same magazine, an IT consultant, a speechwriter on the Hill and now, an executive with a think tank.

At it’s prime, Borders did a great thing: it provided a place where people could buy nearly any piece of recently published or classic literature or music and hang out for hours on end without any overt pressure to buy.  Its welcoming, even comfortable interiors were a wonderful respite from loud, overly bright stores geared towards speed of sales rather than the browsing that good books demand. Its reading groups and arts events—Chicago stores often featured pretty good jazz groups—offered a real cultural outlet.  Borders did a lot more good than bad and forced its competitor, Barnes and Noble, to match these perks.

All that said, I’m partly responsible for Borders’ demise. When I lived across the street from a Borders and cut through it every morning on my way to the metro, I spent well over $100 there most months. When Amazon started “Prime” service, these visits slowed to a trickle. When the Kindle came out (around the time I moved away from that Borders) I stopped buying hardcopy books altogether.

There’s little doubt in my mind, indeed, that the demise of Borders is a good thing culturally and economically: e-readers promise to render literary “gatekeepers” largely obsolete, and within half a decade, will put just about every book ever written at everyone’s fingertips—many of them for free. In a decade, I fully expect that “bookstores” will consist of large format art books, e-reader service desks, and perhaps “publish on demand” machines that produce quick copies of e-reader titles.

Publishers like Assouline—which specialize in gorgeous limited-run books--may also make a go of it as “art dealers” to those who love the printed word.

Borders Books did a lot of good for America. Its demise also portends good things. But I’m entitled to be a little bit sad about it.

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