Entertainment For Lively Minds
So what exactly has Borders ever done for us..?
Mr Hepworth asked this question on his own blog this morning...
http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-has-borders-ever-done...
... and he got me thinking because Borders did quite a lot for me.
I worked for Borders for over 10 years. There are a myriad of reasons behind them going into administration, some external and some internal (and most of those available to read in the comments field on thebookseller.com) but whatever happens in the future, there are plenty of good things I remember from the past...
1. Watching Ian Rankin & Hugh Cornwell duet on a karaoke machine at the General Manager conference on Brighton Pier.
2. Terry Pratchett stealing my lunch.
3. Meeting Richard "Pitch" Pitcciotto, a NYC firefighter trapped under the World Trade Centre on 9/11. He wrote a book about his experience and did a book tour. We took him out to dinner afterwards. He did magic tricks at the table and told some rum old tales...
4. Recommending books to people. No bigger thrill.
5. DInner with Ken Follett, when a colleague of mine compared his Pillars Of The Earth with Thackeray's Vanity Fair. I've never seen a man so thrilled. Or a colleague so wrong.
6. Our Kids departments. Not for nothing did Borders win Children's Bookseller Of The Year for 3 years in a row. On a bad day, you'd go help out in the kids department and see the young faces looking up in wonder at the rows of books, picking out something new and realise why you worked there. Not available on Amazon.
7. Hosting a week of Syd Barrett events in Cambridge. People travelled from all over the world to be there. It felt like an honour to host them.
8. The people I worked with. I realised today that two thirds of my friends on Facebook I know through Borders. As well as highlighting my poor social skills outside of the workplace, I hope this shows how close knit the teams were. Sure we employed the odd idiot, but that was part of the fun too.
9. Causing chaos on the launch night of the last Harry Potter book with a tannoy announcement that resulted in several hundred people leaving their place in the queue only to find they were right & I was wrong... the queue should have remained where it was. Oops.
10. Being able to pop my head into the instore Starbucks knowing my tall, black Americano would be sat there waiting. The modern equivalent of a local pub.
11. Catching people shoplifting erotic novels.
12. Opening a delivery and getting to see all the new stuff first.
13. Reading a whole pile of magazines without paying for them. See, not only the customers did that.
14. Choosing the instore playlist. Then somebody wanting to buy what was playing. My record was 3 copies of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly in one night.
15. Learning that, in a lot of cases, you actually can judge a book by its cover. And if one day you decide to fill a table with books that you just like the covers of, then that table will sell like hot cakes.
There are many, many more too... just thought today was the right time to record a few.
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Hats off for 3 Nightfly copies in 1 night!
:)
Good post.
I love bookshops. Borders in Oxford being a favourite, so I'm sad to see it go. The Children's department there is excellent & my kids will miss it. You don't get that hands on experience at Amazon. :-(
Number 14 is the problem...
Number 14 is the problem as far as I'm concerned. If I'm looking at books I don't want some sodding music playing.
If you drive out the people who want to buy books by playing music, you'd better be selling lots of music. I used my local Borders for the coffee shop and the lavatory alone. On my way past the CD section, I almost never saw a customer there.
And don't get me started on the three-for-two offers. I don't want three books, I don't want two books, I want one book. And if that book is on promotion, I'll go to another shop to see if I can get it cheaper. If I can't, Amazon it is.
Borders muzak
In the Cheshire Oaks branch they are all too fond of the likes of Il Divo, Only Men Aloud and similar Classic FM-friendly abominations. Few things are more guaranteed to send me fleeing from a shop, while trying to suppress my screams.
Mind you, pretty soon just about every shop will be doing the same with Macca's Wonderful Christmastime.
Stopped me in my tracks
Had one of those "Tell me what that is right away - I've got to buy it" moments in Cheshire Oaks Borders some years ago.
Sounded like a cross between Jeff Buckley and Radiohead - I was almost dizzy with excitement on first hearing (though like most on this blog, I'm pretty indifferent to the stuff this band turns out now).
One Borders gift card with exactly 4p left on it to the first one who guesses (OK, hardly the world's toughest quiz, I know...)
I'm guessing Muse...
...and I claim my 4p!
Nope
... but you're welcome to the gift card if no-one else wants it.
Was it
Coldplay? And thanks but no thanks for the gift card :)
But of course!
It's easy to forget that "Shiver" was a great track. In fact, I've just been re-playing Parachutes, and it's better than I remembered (though it's set next door's dogs off howling...)
I know there's exactly 4p on the gift card 'cos I'd just bought a fifty quid card for a birthday present - then found out about Borders' impending demise. Rushed out and spent it myself (at Cheshire Oaks) in case there weren't any shops left to spend it in by the time it got to its destination in the post :(
V. sad to see Borders disappear - I did still use it, particularly for buying fiction. Guess it's Amazon for everything now.
don't apologize!
Coldplay are extremely good at what they do. Your description of them as a cross between Radiohead/Buckley was spot on, but they have a warmth to them that endears them to the general public. Their songs are very inclusive. They are the only UK band that sells in any significant quantity abroad.
I think they're excellent. Not a popular opinion around here, and of course I do understand why.
Favourite song of theirs: Speed of Sound
I think it's time you gave us
Your top ten books of this year. Any genre just give us your top ten. If you like your top ten magazines too.
Sorry to hear that you have lost your job. Best of luck for future employment. I worked for a company for 12 years and they closed down. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise a few years later I now earn twice as much as I did with a much better job.
Many thanks but...
... luckily I left Borders about a year ago... partly due to the fact I could see a day like yesterday coming at some point. Quiet a few friends left there though, which is what prompted me to write the above...
And I can see a separate thread needed for Top 10 Books Of The Year... I could fill pages with that one..! Will have a crack at that later...
Surely some mistake?
Any fule kno that modern, spacious bookshops selling (shudder) coffee are the work of Satan, and not proper booksellers at all, like the ones in the heartwarming 'JR Hartley' Yellow Pages ad of fond recollection.
No, I feel sure your positive experiences must be down to false memory syndrome. Help is available.
I have some sympathy with this point Dougie...
But spacious is good in my book (no pun intended). I like spacious. I get all self conscious in little poky shops where the owner is peering at me over a copy of some obscure publication, daring me to ask for help... And coffee... that's good too. Even Starbucks. I don't mind it at all. Maybe I'm unwittingly in league with the devil! :-)
Each to his own. I just love a big, whacking barn of a shop I can get lost in & never have to make eye contact with anyone. Beautiful. Same with pubs - I love enormo-pubs where you can always get a table... perhaps I'm claustrophobic? Or anti-social... Probably both.
Clarification
Not for the first time, I seem to have overdone the sarcasm somewhat! To clarify, my post was in support of the OP, and a gentle dig at all the 'weren't things great in the old days' merchants.
Sorry, man!
Wasn't really up in arms about it or anything!
I sorta like the modern world most of time & wonder if I'm wrong!
I love heritage too - but I'm equally at home in a ruined castle or a glitzy shopping 'mall'
:-)
Oh Dear
There are few things more tragic than having to explain your own sarcasm :)
True dat!
:-)
I rarely read books. Sorry.
But I used to buy a lot for the GLW, even queueing for Sir Terry's autograph every year (that be Pratchett not Wogan). Mind you I have queued for Leonard Nimoy's signed book with Klingons and their ilk - that was barmy.
I loved my one and only week in New York when I was 40 and wished every bookstore could be like Barnes & Noble. Then I went into the Leeds branch of Borders for the first time and that was the nearest thing in the UK - books, CDs, magazines, etc. Lovely. *sigh*
I don't want all my favourite shops to be like supermarkets. Please don't change.
Barnes and Noble, Union Square?
if so, me too.
So many of the above posts reflect my experiences. My ex and I used to go to Borders in Stockport every Friday night - take a pile of books and mags into Starbucks, have our tea and decide what to purchase - and we always purchased something. It was a great start to the weekend. I miss those days since I moved away.
Us too
That's just the sort of thing that we do about once a fortnight and it's very very rare for us to come out without buying something. The only good thing I can see about losing Borders is that so many US experiences are now commonplace in the UK that visits to Barnes & Noble or Borders while on holiday will be that bit different once again.
That's life
I too would hate it if a large store was the main reason for the demise of a small and valued independent but Borders served a market that in the main simply wasn't served by small independents. This may not be true for large cities but where I live, before Borders there was nowhere to go and drink coffee and decide which book(s) or magazine(s) to buy. Outside London I don't think I've ever encountered such a varied selection of magazines. I've owned a business that was overtaken by larger companies that could provide a slightly different but, for most people, cheaper and better service. The only way we could compete would have been to borrow more than we were happy to, that's life.
I hadn't heard this
I don't go intokshops a lot, but when I do Borders is my preference over chains like Waterstones. Their magazine section is fantastic - not many places sell Printmaking Today ! They also tend to have a pretty good arts/crafts section, though I too get a bit fed up with all the 3 for 2 offers etc that you have to fight past to get there. I wouldn't exactly say the York or Leeds branches are spacious - bottlenecks a-plenty front of house !
The other good thing about them is that they let local groups use their stores for meetings in the evenings as long as you buy a cup of coffee or something, so you can see knitting groups, reading/poetry groups and language classes all happening in various parts of Borders. Always seemed quite charitable to me.