With a title like that, this should be a rant against big bookstores, but it’s really not. I love independent bookstores. I love chain bookstores, too. When it comes right down to it, if you are a place (real or virtual) that is offering to sell me books, chances are you won’t have too much trouble getting me to part with my money. Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Amazon tend to get a bad rap for killing independent bookstores. Borders especially appears to draw a lot of ire. It doesn’t seem reasonable to argue that chains stores in general don’t have an impact on independent stores (usually a negative one), but chains stores aren’t all bad.
I’ve been consistently impressed with the Center City/Avenue of the Arts Borders on South Broad in Philly (here). It’s walkable from my workplace (big bonus points there). They’re clean, well organized, and they have great SF/F section. They seem to be in the process of improving their Horror section, expanding it and making it more prominent, and their Graphic Novel and Manga sections looks freshly reorganized and expanded too. Mass market, trade and franchise/tie-in novels all have their own shelves and they all have roughly equal amounts of space. They also carry quite a few small press titles to boot.
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