Bye Bye Borders

I went to Borders this weekend after getting an email from them that they are in fact all closing. Even though I'm not at all surprised, it makes me sad.  I know people aren't reading as much as they used to, and many of those who do read are now using Kindles and Nooks. I love to read but I don't often have the time, so end up only buying books a couple of times a year (often at Costco), and most of the kids books we borrow from the library.


I've always preferred Borders to Barnes & Noble but now with no independent bookstores in my town I guess that's where I'll have to go.  I occasionally order books from Amazon, but unless I specifically know what I want, I prefer to wander around seeing what catches my eye, and reading a few pages before committing.


So I picked up a few new things.... 

A friend had recommended The Roses by Leila Meacham, which is described as an epic story of an East Texas family.  One review calls it the new Gone with the Wind. Pretty high praise, and even if it doesn't live up to the hype I always love epic novels.

Lush Life by Richard Price was names as one of NYT's Top Ten books of the year.  The description on the back describes it as a "tale of two Lower East Sides: one a high-priced bohemia, the other a home to hardship, its residents pushed to the edges of the time-honored turf, when a cocky young hipster is shot to death by a street kid from the 'other' LES, the crime ripples through every stratum of the city in this brilliant and kaleidoscopic portrait of the 'new' New York."

I started reading one of my new books yesterday - The Piano Teacher by Janice Lee.  It's the story of a young British woman who moves to Hong Kong in 1952 with her new husband, and teaches piano to the young daughter of a wealthy Chinese family.  I haven't gotten very far in it yet, but am already enjoying it.

I picked up one movie.  The Fisher King with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges.  I only saw it once on my first date with my now husband.  The 20th anniversary of that date is coming up in September, so even though we usually don't do anything to celebrate that day anymore, I thought it would be kind of fun to watch it again.  I don't remember much about the movie, as I haven't watched it since that night.

Also to help keep the kids busy on our roadtrip, I got Madlibs for the girls, and a couple of new Virginia Lee Burton books for my son.  As I mentioned before he likes the construction part of the Little House, so I picked up Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and Katy and the Big Snow for him.  All of these books were only reduced by 10% and I'll probably go back as they start discounting more heavily.

I really am sad to see Borders close.  The selection was always good, their employees were always friendly and helpful, and I think they were one of the first to allow you to pre-reserve items on line to pick up in-store.  Key for busy parents everywhere:)