It has been revealed that megaconglomerate Barnes & Noble will most likely buy the failing megaconglomerate Borders, Inc.  This is horrible, horrible news for several reasons:

1. Breathtaking Irony. Anyone remember ten years ago when Barnes & Noble and Borders were fighting to the death for ultimate dominion? I do — I had just started working for Barbara’s Bookstore at the time. My coworkers and loyal customers were scared to death when Borders announced they were opening a location right down the street from us, following the then-popular Starbucks model of market saturation.  Ten years ago, hundreds of Oak Parkers signed petitions begging the Village to please not allow Borders to open and crush all the tiny, independently-owned stores in town. The Village didn’t listen, Borders opened, and suddenly, half those Barbara’s customers were gone, lured by discount stickers and fancy coffee.  That Barbara’s is lucky it still there.

Now, ten years later, the behemoth which decimated the livelihoods of thousands of delightful bookstore owners and employees has choked to death on its own greed (for anyone who doesn’t know, Borders is failing because of its heavy reliance on tanking record sales). The hubris of Borders execs at the time is well-documented, and I sincerely hope it’s humiliating for them to be getting sniffed by what was once their sworn nemesis. (Unfortunately for the book-buying public, few of the good independents are still around to proffer any variety if the sale goes through.)

2. Evil Robots.  If Barnes & Noble and Borders were to fuse together, they would almost certainly form Bookstore Voltron: Lame Force that would shoot beige carpeting and towers of bargain knitting books at unsuspecting English majors, eventually reversing literacy even among staff at the Paris Review.

3. Annoying Pundits. Nothing inspires lazy op-eds like the “debate” over “independent v. chain bookstores.” Below, I’ve provided you with the three major positions presented in the media so you don’t have to read the same argument eight thousand times:

Percival Merriweather: Lazy patrician who hates the chains; frequently bemoans their lack of informed employees, arcane titles, scraggly cats, and comfy nooks; blames their ascendency on the same illiterate American populace who elected G. W. Bush.

Larry Libertarian: Praises the chains as a dramatic expression of the triumph of the Market over snobbery; sings to the heavens that a potato farmer in Topeka has the same access to Literature as a college professor in Portland; scolds the idependents for clerks that dare to read instead of snapping to attention as soon as he waggles his pocketbook.

Debbie Q. Hipster: Because she personally has good taste and knows how and where to find good literature, believes the selections of the independents are too limited to survive, that the diversity of the marketplace obviates their previous role as the exclusive outlets for specialist titles.

Missing from the list above is my position, which is very much right and not at all lazy and shared by many, many people.  All stores offer a selection limited by space. Space is dictated by profits. Chains are bad because even though they ultimately appear to have a greater selection, their very existence limits the number of outlets that could contain books different from theirs. Therefore, they limit the potential variety of books sold. (I refuse to even touch Amazon.com right now — I really need some dinner.)

4. The Chicago Tribune. Reading peoples’ comments on cultural issues is infuriating! Take Ditto Head from Homer, IL: “This would not be a monopoly. There are lots of booksellers, like Andersons and Barbaras.” Exactly, Ditto: there are lots of booksellers like Anderson’s and Barbara’s — large independents that ape the chains in decor and selection.  Many of the interesting ones were wiped out ten years ago.

Then there’s Don’t Go In Alone from Northbrook: “There are no other options to these sellers in the NW suburbs except the Library, we’re not lucky enough to have good competition from strong independents like Barbara’s. ” Uh, Barbara’s is not a strong independent. That’s another blog post, one I cannot write for fear of litigation. What I can say is that in order to survive the first onslaught of the megaconglomerates, Barbara’s had to focus on small stores in airports. It can be argued that an independent bookstore that sells nothing but mass market paperbacks and newspapers isn’t much of an independent, but maybe that’s my inner Percival Merriweather talking.

5. The Death of the Left. To grossly reduce something South End Press’ Jocelyn Burrell once told me in an interview, you can’t start a revolution without independent bookstores. 

That’s it for today, but I will close with saying I SINCERELY HOPE THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN.

It does not surprise me that these people do not have jobs either.

I’m such a jerk. I forgot to post advanced warning of the reading ACM editor/Literago cohort Jacob Knabb is curating for the Reconstruction Room.  And it’s tonight! It promises to be awesome – just check out this lineup: Philip Jenks & Simone Muench, Matthew Guenette, Jonathan Messinger, Greg Purcell, Erikka Mikalo, Aras and the Volodkas, Nick Garcia, Miki Howald, and Nicolette Bond.  You can’t really do better than that!

Date: Friday, May 23rd

Time: 7:00 pm, $1

Location: The Hideout

Participants: Kevin Sampsell, Diana Slickman

I was fairly ambivalent about posting a listing for this event, not because I don’t love the Dollar Store, but because any advertising could cause it to sell out even quicker now.  From the email:

The Dollar Store comes back for a onetime show as part of the Pilcrow Literary Festival, and a sort of big Chicago hello to friend Kevin Sampsell, author of the new Creamy Bullets, who’ll read a story inspired by a piece of Portland dollar store junk, making it the first piece of DS junk that’s been on a commercial airliner (The Show has sprung for an extra biz-class seat for it, if you must know).

And joining him is Diana Slickman, a Dollar Store favorite who was gracious enough not to say no when we asked her to do something again.

The event is a must-see for the same reason it’s bittersweet: another Dollar Store won’t come around for a long while.

This morning, the Tribune reports that while other big-name institutions like Harvard and Yale are storing their books off-campus, the U of C plans to build an underground library capped by a glorious glass dome. I kind of like the article’s opener in spite of myself:

At the University of Chicago, where the student hangout is the library and a prize is awarded annually for undergraduate book collecting, officials are expected to announce Monday plans to build another tribute to the university’s bookish character.

Almost as cool as the future existence of an underground library made of glass is that its major donor is the CEO of Morningstar, Inc., maker of the world’s greatest veggie corn dog.

Photo of E. Hand courtesy of Locus; M. Sharpe courtesy of Small Spiral Notebook

Date: Monday, May 12, 2008

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Location: The Book Cellar

Generation Loss and Jamestown were not only two of the most engaging American novels published last year, but also two of the more entertaining literary meditations on violence released in recent memory. 

Loss bears the distinction of being the only postpunk hardboiled mystery in existence (please correct me if there’s one I don’t know about). I would have loved it only for the way Hand seamlessly name-drops John Holstrom, but her queasy-making depictions of blood, guts, violence and decay send her off into Blood Meridian Land, and to really good effect. I’ve never read George Pelicanos, but I would think this is George Pelicanos for music geeks.

And Jamestown is just flat-out hilarious. I remember being really afraid to start it, since I lurved Sharpe’s first book, The Sleeping Father, and I feared a sophomore slump.  But it was not to be! It was great!

Don’t miss it, kids.  Super awesome double-headers like this don’t come along that frequently.

Photo courtesy of Alan Del Rio Ortiz

I have finally finished The Lazarus Project, Aleksander Hemon’s new novel. All those comparisons to Nabokov? Accurate. No, really.  I’ve read all his books, and although The Question of Bruno will always be my favorite, this came very close. 

Last week, I had the privilege to attend his event at the Stop Smiling storefront, and it was really charming. After thirty minutes’ worth of reading, Hemon talked about Europe and how old isn’t necessarily good, since old grudges sometimes lead to acts of genocide. The evening ended with a slide show by Velibor Bozovik, Hemon’s best friend and the photographer responsible for many of the images in the novel.  (There’s a really good interview with Bozovik here.)

Hemon himself is very tall, and there were several other very tall Eastern Europeans in attendance who did not get misty-eyed when confronted with the projected images of their homeland. Additionally, there were somewhere around 50 (?) others who gathered for the event, someone from WBEZ recorded it, and this guy was there.  If you missed it, there should be photos and audio available that we’ll link to once they’re up.

I’ll be there, although now when I think of American Apparel, I think of this video on Jezebel.com

Don’t ask me why I was looking at James Frey’s MySpace page, but I was, and I found out he’s flying right over Chicago on the tour for his latest book. I’d like to think he’s avoiding us because he knows we’re too discerning for him, but I know it’s really because he’s scared of Oprah.