day 59
Duly Noted
 |
| Adoe Leather Journal at Etsy. Click here for more! |
It's official. Borders bookstore is dead broke, adios bankrupt goodbye. Rescue talks over the weekend failed. 399 more stores will be shuttered and 10,700 employees will lose their jobs. And me, I'm sad.
My Borders was where I purchased all the children's summer reading books, where I bought tomes on soap making and essential oils, where I sat on the upstairs floors paging through the most glorious cookbooks. It's where I didn't give in --and then did--- to fruit sodas and carrot cake.
It seems sentimental and maudlin to worry about bookstores and libraries, yet I do. I worry that my new community library is stocked to the rafters with TV CDs and computers----but seemingly few books. That there is now only one instead of three bookstores within walking distance of my home. |
| Books are sexy. Find at Etsy |
The childhood days of lying across my bed during DC's long hot summers, reading Nancy Drew are gone. Gone is the strolling up to the library counter with my stack of ten books, and their pages, that wafted of mustiness and the long dried ink from unabridged classics. But perhaps, most gone is that sense that we'll never give our full attention to reading words again. We will rush through, piloted like tech surfers, blinking and breathing as we go.
Good night,
Wanda
Copyright Wanda Fleming, 2011
www.rivergirlssoap.com
6 comments:
I too think this is sad but have to admit the only way I get the books read for my monthly bookclub is by purchasing them from Audible and listening to them in the car, while walking or making art. Sitting and reading an actual book is a rare pleasure for vacations. Sad.
I too am doing that now. I just joined last week. And in a way, I'm now thinking--"Thank God, I am finally getting back to my mountains of reading."
This morning at 6:30, I got up to hit the treadmill and popped in the new Swedish murder mystery, The Hyponotist. I had completed several chapters by the time I had finished working out. That's a heady experience.. but what I do note, however, is that you really must pay attention or else you're forever going back and forth with the tape. I never have this problem when I'm reading a book in hand. Reading requires a degree of focus and immediate retention. I wonder if we will all lose our ability to truly focus and retain? I hope my surgeon doesn't read all his books on tape... ;-) He probably hasn't the time to read at all!
Don't be too sad. My whole family are avid book readers and we all use Kindles now. Granted, it doesn't "feel" like a book, but the screen looks like one and it reads like one. I refused to purchase a Kindle till I saw the screen looks just like the page of a book! Libraries and book stores may suffer, but the written word will not. :)
I thought of Borders as "my bookstore," even thought it was a chain store. It still had that cozy feeling. I guess cozy doesn't pay. Just quit membership in Audible.com, because I have a backlog of downloaded audiobooks I haven't gotten to yet. But I love audiobooks! I like to listen to them when I'm creating art or working on my online shops, too. I do miss passages sometimes, because I'm multi-tasking, but that just means that I can listen more times, to pick up the bits I missed. Cheers, Marian
I love them to. I read two in the past 5 days and am now finally finishing a tome--Fast Food for Millionaires--via the tape. I so agree about Borders. Sometimes those of us who love the indy bookstores trashed the behemoth Borders. But the truth is my Borders was our neighborhood bookstore too! Very sad to see it close. I have very fond memories of walking with the children there in the summers then going next door to the corner bakery for lemonade and sandwiches. Both establishments have closed down. We really don't need another Bloomingdales or Saks.....
Post a Comment