BORDERS BANKRUPTCY: AN APPRECIATION
Apr. 15th, 2011 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogEveryone has a vice. That one thing they just can’t say no to and will go out of their way to satisfy if given half a chance. Cigars. Booze. Blow. Blowjobs.
For me, it’s bookstore clearance sales.
I’ve been in Singapore the past few days. They have a Borders there. And Borders, you may have heard, is going through a rocky patch. And so, by the wildest of coincidences, on my last day in town, Borders rented space in the *Scape Warehouse and bought truckloads of books, with the highest price at 5 Singapore dollars (which works out to 4 US dollars).
And I just happened to have a few hours to kill before I had to head to the airport.
WINNING!
A few fun facts for color:
1. That’s about 40% of the books I had in my basket by the time I had finished with the Fiction section. (I would have gone through the Non-fiction section but there wasn’t time.) I pared it down not so much for cost reasons as (1) my “to-read” pile is already huge, (2) I travel with a small suitcase, and (3) airline baggage weight restrictions. My check-in luggage weighed 6 kg when I arrived in Singapore – it weighed 15kg when I left.
2. At these kinds of sales, I tend to choose three kinds of books: books by authors I like, books by authors I’ve always wanted to try, and books by authors I normally wouldn’t try unless I got the book for free or at least really cheap. In the end, I went mostly with the familiar, mainly because I do have to weigh the likelihood of me ever reading (say) Lilith Saintcrow or the works of John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem when I’ve got so many other books I could be reading. That said, I’ll probably regret passing up on Richard Price’s Lush Life and the fictional manga bio of Robert Johnson.
3. That copy of Daddy Cool? It’s actually the graphic-novel version. Seriously.
4. I’ve actually already read Agent To The Stars – but in “free e-book” form. I decided I might as well get a hard copy. I just hope John Scalzi gets a cut of that.
5. I’ve never read Max Brand, but I did used to like watching the film version of Destry Rides Again. And after having read and enjoyed True Grit and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, I’m kind of open to Westerns as a genre to explore (though I don’t know if I’m up to trying Louis L'amour or Larry McMurtry anytime soon). I might be tempted to try Zane Grey one day, if only because my mom is a fan, and she turned me on to Simenon, so how bad could it be?
DISCLAIMER: While I’m kind of sad that the Singapore Borders is closing, I won’t really miss it. Apart from the selection becoming less and less relevant to my needs (compared to the Kinokuniya a few blocks down Orchard Road), that particular store had a bad habit of not policing the racks to reshelve books in the right order, or even the right genre, after customers had moved them, which just made it hard to find things.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s gratifying to see Ann Coulter’s books in the science-fiction/horror section. But still, you know, I have standards.
TOTAL book nerd,
This is dF
For me, it’s bookstore clearance sales.
I’ve been in Singapore the past few days. They have a Borders there. And Borders, you may have heard, is going through a rocky patch. And so, by the wildest of coincidences, on my last day in town, Borders rented space in the *Scape Warehouse and bought truckloads of books, with the highest price at 5 Singapore dollars (which works out to 4 US dollars).
And I just happened to have a few hours to kill before I had to head to the airport.
WINNING!
A few fun facts for color:
1. That’s about 40% of the books I had in my basket by the time I had finished with the Fiction section. (I would have gone through the Non-fiction section but there wasn’t time.) I pared it down not so much for cost reasons as (1) my “to-read” pile is already huge, (2) I travel with a small suitcase, and (3) airline baggage weight restrictions. My check-in luggage weighed 6 kg when I arrived in Singapore – it weighed 15kg when I left.
2. At these kinds of sales, I tend to choose three kinds of books: books by authors I like, books by authors I’ve always wanted to try, and books by authors I normally wouldn’t try unless I got the book for free or at least really cheap. In the end, I went mostly with the familiar, mainly because I do have to weigh the likelihood of me ever reading (say) Lilith Saintcrow or the works of John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem when I’ve got so many other books I could be reading. That said, I’ll probably regret passing up on Richard Price’s Lush Life and the fictional manga bio of Robert Johnson.
3. That copy of Daddy Cool? It’s actually the graphic-novel version. Seriously.
4. I’ve actually already read Agent To The Stars – but in “free e-book” form. I decided I might as well get a hard copy. I just hope John Scalzi gets a cut of that.
5. I’ve never read Max Brand, but I did used to like watching the film version of Destry Rides Again. And after having read and enjoyed True Grit and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, I’m kind of open to Westerns as a genre to explore (though I don’t know if I’m up to trying Louis L'amour or Larry McMurtry anytime soon). I might be tempted to try Zane Grey one day, if only because my mom is a fan, and she turned me on to Simenon, so how bad could it be?
DISCLAIMER: While I’m kind of sad that the Singapore Borders is closing, I won’t really miss it. Apart from the selection becoming less and less relevant to my needs (compared to the Kinokuniya a few blocks down Orchard Road), that particular store had a bad habit of not policing the racks to reshelve books in the right order, or even the right genre, after customers had moved them, which just made it hard to find things.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s gratifying to see Ann Coulter’s books in the science-fiction/horror section. But still, you know, I have standards.
TOTAL book nerd,
This is dF
