Saturday, July 23, 2011

Is this the end of books as we know them?

Thursday I received an e-mail from the people at Borders bookstore announcing the closing of their stores. It had been in the papers that Borders was in financial troubles for a long time and even that they had closed some of the stores. But it was never one of the store around here so the announcements never seemed that real to me. That all changed when I went to check my e-mail and saw that final notice saying they were beginning their final closing sale.

I have grown up in a family where books have always been around. We were constantly added more bookcases and would fill them up as soon as we built or bought one. There would be all kinds of book from biographies to mysteries to cookbooks. I personally read quite often and enjoyed quite a variety of books. Some of my favorites over the years have been "The cat who..." series, the Stephine Plum books, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and the list goes on.

One of the reason that is most often given for Borders going under is that they should have put more effort into the e-reader revolution. That is probably a big part of why they went bankrupt but I think it is a shame that so much is put into going away from the traditional book. I don't see anything wrong with e-readers and e-books, in fact I might get one some day, but I like being able to hold a paperback in my hand and actually turn the pages. One nice thing I will say is that it would be that an e-read would have been handy on those particularly thing books that are hard to hold.

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