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.