Barnes & Noble to close hundreds of stores

You know, paper is actually pretty good.  No need to charge, ever...drop it by accident and it still works....works in bright sunlight...easy to share with a friend.

While I do appreciate being able to have 10 books on my Kindle for travelling, I do also love the books I have in my home.   They add a character and civility to life.

Similarly, I suppose I can buy all my food prepared and frozen - but I personally prefer to have the choice of a small restaurant or making a fine meal myself.

Save the Barnes and Noble store in Arlington, TX. We like to read and see books outside the Big Apple, too.

 Browsing in a bookstore gives us a chance to serendipitously find new, interesting books (and handle them to be sure they really are interesting) and new books by favorite authors as well. My interests, both fiction and non-fiction, are fairly broad and I can't keep up with the new books in these areas without looking at the books first-hand.

At my local store they have a Starbuck coffee bar and sometimes it is so crowded with students taking advantage of WiFi there's no room for paying customers

Books are history on the shelf.   Digital books are a hard drive awaiting to CRASH AND BURN.

As we know all the recent digital movies, pictures and such continue to become obsolete in a few years.

This will be the fate of digital books.

I know this is a story about Barnes and Noble and I, too, lament the fact that we are losing so many great book stores, including the little Mom & Pop stores.  There's just something about touching and smelling a new book that "hooks" a bibliophile.  However, don't forget about our libraries.  In recent years what with the decline of decent television I have moved to reading instead of watching TV so I go thru a LOT of books per month.  Even with big box places like Costco and Sams Club, with their deeply discounted prices you can't always get what you want and they still cost a pretty penny. 

 I have re-discovered my local library and I'm glad I did.  I have found new (to me) authors and actually I can usually find anything I need and if I can't the librarian will order it for me.  Our library gives me three weeks to read what I choose and I can always renew if need be.  I usually check out about 15 books at a time and I am even able to get quite a few popular titles in large print for my 84 year old mom, too.  If I find a book that is particularly compelling, something I know I will want to read again and again, I can always purchase it at a book store later and know it is a book that won't "go to waste" since every book is not necessarily a winner.

Besides checking out books from the library, my library has four big used book sales every year put on by a library "friends" group.  I can buy sacks and sacks of books for little money and have even found several antique and rare books at the sale.  I read both hard back and paper back books and some of the books I buy are brand new with $30 price tags and I get them for $1, a really great deal!

In short, yes, it's sad that we readers are losing a very big part of our reading life.  But remember your local library, I think you will be glad you did.

I am now a crazy fan of Songs of Fire and Ice, also known as The

Game of Thrones.  I've seen the TV efforts of HBO, but nothing can be compared to the rich prose of these  books.  Perhaps they will ignite an interest in reading to an older demography as did the Harry Potter series.