View Full Version : Borders goes bust?
Saw this in the Daily Telegraph today:
Borders administration likely 'within hours' - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/6653768/Borders-administration-likely-within-hours.html)
Stewart
25-Nov-2009, 20:52
Apparently there's an announcement due soon, as The Bookseller reports (http://www.thebookseller.com/news/104231-bdo-poised-with-decision-on-borders-imminent.html.rss).
It'll be a sad day if the high street loses a bookseller with such a range of available volumes (at least in the one I use). Sadder still, is the situation of the workforce who look certain to lose jobs if no buyer for the chain comes forward (and that's looking less likely) and, as you can see in the comments on that link, are rightly concerned at the deafening silence that appears to be coming from up on high.
DB Cooper
26-Nov-2009, 05:12
Its a shame that smaller independent bookstores are closing left and right, and now it appears that the larger corporate entities are also suffering. I love the feeling of going to a bookshop and browsing for hours while trying to decide between all the magnificent books I wish or plan to read. Now it appears that sooner than later these shops will be relics of the past, and our respective cultures are not better off for it.
It was mentioned very briefly on the news tonight and is in most of the papers. I see that Books Etc are also affected.
For instance:
UK bookshop chain Borders goes into administration | Business | guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/26/borders-goes-into-administration)
Borders UK collapses putting 1,150 jobs at risk - Business News, Business - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/borders-uk-collapses-putting-1150-jobs-at-risk-1828696.html)
Borders closes a chapter as administrators named - Times Online (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article6934219.ece)
I couldn't actually find the Telegraph article.
But if Dubai goes bust, this will be bigger news than the decline of a few brave souls shoring up against general philistinism, with a few pathetic sandbags. Sadness and wistfulness will not bring the bookshops back. We do live in a capitalist society, whether you like it or not. Woolworths was also a "national treasure", but nobody saved it, apart from a few shops like the one in Dorchester. Marks & Spencers may not yet be out of the wood.
I think that intellectuals will have to learn that literature cannot rely on a few well-stocked university bookshops, plus Waterstone's, Heffers, Blackwells, and a few others to do a Canute against the general decline in reading standards, interest in foreign languages, etc. Bookselling is commercial, not a charity. So until the tide turns, not even the most idealistic small bookshops will make much headway against bankruptcy. Amazon and Kindle need not be enemies of literature, but they have to be tied into a book culture where people care, so people are prepared to spend money on paper books.
I read today that another 23 big-name high-street businesses are about to go down the drain/toilet/tubes, but they're keeping stumm about their true financial situation till Xmas is over in order to get as much cash flow as possible. Too bad if you wait till after New Year to ask for a refund if the present Santa brought you doesn't fit you/doesn't work.
Harry
The Scotsman tells us interesting things about the forthcoming "bloodbath". As Harry points out, and I suppose to avoid causing wholesale panic, the "insolvency practitioners" kept stumm about which the 23 were. But this sort of panic leak is not good for business confidence. Maybe Dubai had a hand in the leak, out of revenge, or some Russian oligarch is hoping to pick up a few chains on the cheap. (Mind you, he could do that in the GULag - the ones round his ankles, as Khodorkovsky found out the hard way.)
It's a pity when bookshops go bust. Though I don't see gasps of horror from many of the literati and book-reading classes here. Maybe they all buy their books on Amazon.
The Scotsman tells us interesting things about the forthcoming "bloodbath". As Harry points out, and I suppose to avoid causing wholesale panic, the "insolvency practitioners" kept stumm about which the 23 were. But this sort of panic leak is not good for business confidence. Maybe Dubai had a hand in the leak, out of revenge, or some Russian oligarch is hoping to pick up a few chains on the cheap. (Mind you, he could do that in the GULag - the ones round his ankles, as Khodorkovsky found out the hard way.)
It's a pity when bookshops go bust. Though I don't see gasps of horror from many of the literati and book-reading classes here. Maybe they all buy their books on Amazon.
See today's (oops, yesterday's) "Guardian" on how British booklovers have never warmed to Borders, because they don't like driving to the outskirts of town to sit in a coffee-shop franchised to Starbuck's to browse their purchases, especially as these stores are often next-door to a supermarket where you can buy the books cheaper as part of your weekly shop.
I've never visited the so-called Edinburgh one which is actually out in the wilds of Midlothian to the south of the city in a soulless shopping mall, but I will miss the Glasgow one which is bang in the centre of the city and which I used to visit on my infrequent sallies through to the west.
But I read once about the shitty way in which they treat their forcibly non-unionised staff- the usual right-wing American big-business 'if you don't like it here you can fuck off' stance - so maybe we shouldn't miss them too much.
Harry
I couldn't find the relevant Guardian article on the internet. But after the collapse of the Net Book Agreement in 1997, I think it was, there has been a free-for-all for bookselling. While I support competition between, say, supermarkets and food outlets, books are part of culture and do need some protection.
Civilised countries have caf?s in bookshops, although the Borders I visited, on the Charing Cross Road in London, did not. I personally don't care who runs the coffee franchise, not least because I have drunk both beer and wine at different bookshops in Tallinn. If they tried that in London, all the piss-artist wannabe intellectuals would be puking over the books.
The worst culprit for non-unionised staff that I know of in the book trade was the notorious Christina Foyle, who would do dirty tricks like sacking people just before they became permanent staff to avoid having to pay social charges. Foyle's, now much improved, was always full of temps and students scraping a living behind the counter.
I am a right winger myself in most economic matters, but I do not approve of exploitation. If an employee is paid a decent wage they can pay for various unemployment insurance schemes themselves. Or the state can indeed provide a civilised safety net. But the Foyle's scenario ultimately alienated everyone. And you've got to be careful with bookshops that are a bit New Agey and Leftie, as image to the customer, but are as hard as nails when it comes to staff exploitation. "Come and work for next to nothing and support the Revolution."
I don't know what James Thin was like as an employer, but it was a nice bookshop for the customer.
I don't know what James Thin was like as an employer, but it was a nice bookshop for the customer.
Yes, Thin's was an Edinburgh institution. My younger son worked for a while in their branch in the Gyle shopping centre on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The former main branch at South Bridge is now a Blackwell's, and their branch in George Street is a Waterstone's, one of three within a few hundred yards of each other.
I've often commented on the irony that in the ten years or so since Scotland gained a measure of devolution - to the extent that the Scottish Executive now dares to call itself the Scottish Government - the "Scottishness" of Scotland has diminished markedly to the point where there is hardly a home-grown industry or business left, and our High Streets could be in Leicester or Ipswich.
All of which makes the recent Homecoming extravaganza of ostrich-feather bonnets and kilts in Holyrood Park all the more surreal.
Harry
I remember one branch of Thin's for its labyrinth of levels which I'm sure, the new owners will not have altered.
If I were starting a small independent bookshop in the Scottish capital, I'd like to give it a solid, upmarket, topical name, such as "True Tartan Dubai World Books Inc". I would find the best spot on Princes Street, on a rent now, pay later basis, and turn half the bookshop into a pub. I would ban the sale of "literary items" and encourage a shoplifters scheme, so that a small proportion of the bestseller stock would be allowed to be nicked, and the "True Tartan Dubai World Books Inc." brand would pop up being read in all manner of Edinburgh pubs during the Book Fair by people drinking the new hit, "True Tartan Dubai Best Bitter", whose licence I would buy from the UAE. I would sell Gordon Brown vee-shirts, and Michael Gove slippers, plus mugs with a portrait of Sheikh Mandelson to add to my profits, and register "True Tartan Dubai World Books Inc." in tax haven Dubai, sorry, the Cayman Isles, where all your savings are safe as the houses of Liechtenstein. I'm full of good ideas about bookselling. Maybe I'll give up literary translation and become a capitalist, and indulge in honest trading for a change.
Scotland on Sunday columnist Chitra Ramaswamy writes: "Last week, waiting for my train to leave Glasgow Central, I decided to kill some time in Borders ...
There, in the middle of the shop in the middle of Buchanan Street, I had a novel experience. I couldn't find a single damn book I wanted to buy. The endless wall of cookery tomes with its gallery of rogues - Jamie, Gordon, Hugh - turned my stomach. The Dan Browns, the Stephanie Meyers, the Stieg Larssons, the 2 for 1s, the 3 for 2s, the half-price for the next 30 seconds. There was just no sense of discovery. It was an overwhelming and yet utterly unfulfilling experience - the classic capitalist conundrum of too much choice throttling desire. I left with nothing but the scent of Costa coffee up my nostrils."
By contrast -
"A few days before ... I spent a wonderful afternoon in the old bookshops on Edinburgh's West Port. In one I dug up a first edition Daphne du Maurier for ?4. In another I bought some Dickens hardbacks. The ageing owner, huddled as is customary up to an electric heater with a single bar burning orange, smiled as I handed over my coins. "It's been a good day." he said. "I've sold four books."
West Port is the area where Burke and Hare used to smother their befuddled victims in order to get "fresh meat" to sell to Dr. Knox the anatomist. One of the bookshops there specialises in language-courses and dictionaries, and on the eve of a holiday in Ljubljana I was delighted to purchase what I thought was a pocket dictionary of Slovene, only to find out when I got home it was actually Slovakian.
Harry
Yes, the confusion between "slovensko" and similar is a bit trying.
I've also noticed that some sturdy paperbacks, born of the 1940s, can still be read without the glued spine splitting, as with later editions.
On my sole visit ever to Edinburgh I did not, alas, discover West Port. For bookshop purposes, of course.
Yes, the confusion between "slovensko" and similar is a bit trying.
I've also noticed that some sturdy paperbacks, born of the 1940s, can still be read without the glued spine splitting, as with later editions.
On my sole visit ever to Edinburgh I did not, alas, discover West Port. For bookshop purposes, of course.
If you went there now, you would discover why it is sometimes known as Edinburgh's "pubic triangle". The triangular-shaped area near Lothian Road is home to a sleazy collection of pole-dancing joints and sex shops. The bookshops are further east, near the Grassmarket, a nice pub and outdoor-dining area during the day, a no-go area for noisy drunks at night.
Harry
So it's bye-bye Books Etc. See:
Why Books Etc is closing ? Telegraph Blogs (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jameshall/100001465/why-books-etc-is-closing/?utm_source=Telegraph.co.uk&utm_medium=TD_books&utm_campaign=Finance2510)
Whiteleys: the decline of an icon ? Telegraph Blogs (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jameshall/100002415/whiteleys-the-decline-of-a-icon/)
I personally am sad about its demise because the only place in London I have seen copies of my translation of Mati Unt's "Things in the Night" was at the Whiteley's on Queensway.
This building housed (and partly still houses) a shopping centre the posh likes of which I have only seen in Tallinn. But all bubbles burst in the end. Bye-bye Dubai, as well. I wonder how many bookshops they have over there.
A further Torygraph take on bookshops:
No more bookshops? Good riddance. ? Telegraph Blogs (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/basheerakhan/100004279/no-more-bookshops-good-riddance/)
Clarissa
03-Dec-2009, 12:51
Ms Khan is not an example I should care to follow. Libraries do not offer the choice a good bookshop does. I was once in a library in Limehouse and all I could find there was a collection of show biz biographies, a number of books in Urdu and some Agatha Christies. When I asked if they had anything else, I was taken to the cellar which was full of books I might have wanted to read. Had I not asked, I would never have known. And what a palaver getting to them was. The cellar door was firmly bolted and I had to have the librarian wth me to open all the locks! Hardly inviting!
As to the e-book, definitely not for me. Nothing can replace the pleasure of opening a printed book and slowly discovering its contents. If the book is new, the pleasure acquires an added sensuality. In the old days, French books were printed on thick paper and you had to cut the pages with a paperknife. Silly really, but that did enhance the pleasure for me.
A book is a beautiful object, books furnish a room, make it welcoming and cosy. Ebooks are cold, books are warm.
Clarissa, maybe you're right about Ms Khan, whose article was rather unfocussed.
But one should not dismiss all libraries. All over Europe there are university ones (which you can, at least here in the Netherlands, join by subscription), public libraries that have various criteria for joining, gratis or paid, and various private libraries, like the American one in Cracow in the mid-1970s and the German one in Tallinn in the mid-1990s. I have lived in several countries in Europe, and except in Soviet times, libraries were not always as Dickensian as the one you describe. Where is Limehouse?
But I again agree with you on e-books. I find it sad that Kindle, and other book-reading-solutions involve the constant charging of batteries, which I'm sure, if it were calculated, is worse for the environment than the trees chopped down to make the paper for books. And there is the psychological effect of encouranging the constant consumption of a finite asset, i.e. electricity.
Paper knives were not used only on French books, although the French kept the habit of uncut pages until much more recently. This did, at least, ensure that no one else had read that particular book before you.
SlowRain
04-Dec-2009, 04:14
Please don't bash ebooks too much without trying them first.
However, I do believe the power consumption per book read would be much, much lower with ebooks. A couple of charges, especially if one is environmentally conscious and uses a solar panel, can not amount to the same energy consumption of logging the trees, transporting them, processing them, transporting them, processing into paper, transporting them, printing, transporting the books, storing the books in the store for weeks, months, years.
It's the gadgets, not the ebooks. Please don't blame ebooks.
Now, back to Borders...
Clarissa
04-Dec-2009, 06:37
Eric,
Limehouse is in Tower Hamlets, London
Paper knives were not used only on French books, although the French kept the habit of uncut pages until much more recently. This did, at least, ensure that no one else had read that particular book before you.
In the dictionary offices I worked in until 2001 we kept paper knives to slit open the pages of some of the books we used, i.e. new scholarly editions of medieval texts by the likes of the Scottish Text Society. Often there were pages uncut. I still use a paper knife or table knife to slit open letters, although my wife cheerfully rips them open with her fingers. I suppose I'm just pernickety.
Newspapers used to be uncut too, and in many an English middle-class family it was the privilege of the paterfamilias to slit open the Times and have first perusal of it before anyone else got to it.
Harry
SlowRain, once you've got a book it can last well over a century and still be read. In other words, the artefact was there before you were born and will still be there after you die. The carbon footprint of a well-bound book is not that high, despite the suggestions that forests are felled. "Kindle" is an ironic name in this context! The storage is, of course, a valid factor (temperature, humidity), but libraries are not yet burning books and preferring electronic solutions.
All this endless charging of little electronic devices is tying people to the electricity grid and to a highly centrally controlled choice of things to read. It's making you dependent on yet another technological fix, and on the often populist tastes of the profit-makers.
A further consideration is the pulp-bestseller-chicklit-crime publishing industry as business models. This multi-million-pound industry is the culprit when it comes to wrecking forests, not the publication of genuine fiction and poetry, written out of feeling, not a feeling only for profit. Smaller presses, chapbooks, small editions reprinted if the need arises, and real reading, are the ideal. Too many people convince themselves that a book reprinted in editions of 10,000 is a must to read, as they want to be with the in-crowd of intellectual with-its. They are just being manipulated by the capitalists they claim to despise.
And make no mistake, the capitalists in the book trade have understood the gullibility of the Left, years ago. If you say the book is against global warming, about Marxist heroes in Chile and Bolivia, or for the rights of Amazonian Indians, the marketing machine churns into action. And the Lefties queue up in docile fashion to contribute to the profits.
SlowRain
05-Dec-2009, 08:38
Okay, fair enough, but all things being equal, an ebook will last forever. If the person uses a solar panel for charging, ebooks are greener and longer lasting. Plus, no book will ever go out of print again.
Yes, people are tied to the electricity grid, but nothing--and I mean nothing--is going to change that. That's the course of human direction--technology gets adopted. Once efficiencies develop further, and renewable energy becomes the norm, this becomes a moot point.
Please don't mistake me for a technophile. I have a PDA and a computer, and my wife has an MP3 player somewhere, and we each have a cell phone. We don't yet have a digital camera. My other hobby is coffee. My grinders are now all hand grinders, my brewed coffee is made in either a French press or AeroPress, and my espresso machine is a lever machine. I love the manual process when it makes sense and is environmentally friendly. But I've chosen ebooks, not only for the convenience, but because they're much, much greener over the long term.
I also disagree that it creates a "highly centrally controlled choice of things to read." I think it will decentralize the book industry in the same way the music industry is starting to decentralize (I said 'starting', the music industry has a long way to go before they can break the hold of the record companies).
Having said all that, I think I can agree with you on the book industry.
Without statistics (and look what a mess the University of East Anglia has got into regarding climate change) I find it counter-intuitive to say that just because we're hooked on electricity for so many things (computers, washing machines, TV, heating, etc.) we should just give in to electricity-eating ways of reading books. Apart from the sources of energy, a Kindle can break down (i.e. pack up), which a paper book cannot do unless the spine glue gives out, and the pages are spread all over the street.
Neither me nor SlowRain are technophiles, or Luddites. But I believe in a conservative way of tackling problems. In other words, where things work, don't phase them out immediately, only to find that the new fix doesn't work, or is inefficient. I prefer to err on the side of caution, rather than welcoming every new piece of technology.
If every reading member of the public has a scanner at home, and second-hand bookshops are not put out of business, then we can happily scan the books we want to. But remember that there are also copyright issues at stake. Someone once wrote the book and wants a bit of money, every time people read it. That too can be done by technology but a "dead" paper book with regard to royalties, bought second-hand, is also a solution.
Another problem with the scanner-Kindle mentality is that society will become fragmented. People will never be encouraged to explore anything beyond their pet interests. This could lead to the type of fragmentation of society where everyone "does their own thing" but cannot relate to others except at a tabloid newspaper level.
SlowRain
07-Dec-2009, 03:55
Okay, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But what if Gutenberg had felt that way? Books were being produced before his little invention, it's just that his little invention made them more accessible. While ebooks won't have the same scale of impact, they do make reading more accessible. Then there are the ancillary benefits like being able to highlight, make notes, look up words in a dictionary, look up information in an encyclopedia, look up locations on a map, link to reference material--and all nearly instantaneously and in one small, hand-held device that goes wherever you go.
Yes, they do break, and they are a bit expensive up front. Those are valid criticisms. However, that hasn't stopped too many people from owning a car, yet look at how people in the early 20th Century reacted to the invention and adoption of the car; the telephone is another good example. Everyone--except for the developers and early adopters--always criticizes new technology for one reason or another, only to have it adopted by society later on when they realize the objections weren't really valid in the first place. It's been that way for thousands of years, it's that way now, and it will most likely continue to be that way--it's a very fundamental core of humanity. Ebooks are/will be no different from cars or telephones in that regard. The entire history of humanity seems to indicate that ebooks will be adopted.
I am grateful for the invention of electricity, washing machines, cars, computers, the internet, and the printing press--ebooks, too. I think all of these have made our lives better. We do need to work on efficiencies, both in producing electricity and in using it, and that's a major task for this generation.
All those people in Copenhagen will be going on about the depletion of finite resources, and pollution. It seems perverse that just when the world is coming round to the idea of not being profligate with energy, bookselling conglomerates are inventing ways of hooking millions to their electricity-eating products.
There's no point in harnassing wind energy, solar panels, and nuclear fission & fusion (when they find a good way of using the latter), and immediately then finding new ways of using up energy. This is as perverse as the idea of spending your way out of a recession, because it gives people more work. This idea of spending to save is also counter-intuitive. As are these weird ideas such as carbon trading, which means that if you're rich you continue to pollute, then pay, with the acceptance of everyone else. So that the rich nations and individuals carry on as before.
SlowRain
08-Dec-2009, 04:57
Fair enough, but what if--and I realize it's a big if, but I'm convinced of it--ebooks are actually greener than paper books? Where's the perversity then?
At some point soon, people will have some sort of personal electronic device that replaces the need for several other items. Think of it as a super iPhone. Yes, it uses electricity--assume from a renewable source--but it replaces the need for other manufactured items. It also has the ability to host books. The device is already in people's pockets for legitimate reasons other than reading, it just so happens that you can take a huge chunk out of the paper industry. That seems pretty green to me.
Why go back to the horse and buggy when you can just utilize technology to produce efficient cars? Sure, people in the early 20th Century had all of their reasons for keeping the horse and buggy--pollution, noise, safety--but history has shown the car to be a very good invention, if a little abused. Make cars greener and there is no legitimate environmental opposition to them.
I don't think you're giving enough credence to the environmental savings from switching to ebooks and using renewable energy to power the devices.
Ebook is to book as leafblower is to rake.
Fair enough, but what if--and I realize it's a big if, but I'm convinced of it--ebooks are actually greener than paper books? Where's the perversity then?
I actually just took part in a study on the environmental impact of e-books. Their findings were that e-books are more - though not much more - environmentally friendly than real books if:
a) you read your books on a multi-purpose device (iPhone, netbook, etc), or
b) you read at least 33 books on your e-reader (Sony, Kindle, Nook, etc) during its lifetime.
Apparently, 33 books over a 2- or 3-year period is considered a lot.
However,
Okay, fair enough, but all things being equal, an ebook will last forever.
Not as long as they insist on using DRM, it won't.
The Amish manage with horse-drawn buggies, though I'm sure there's a lot of cheating going on. The motor vehicle is an extremely handy invention, though no one initially thought that there'd be so many of them as to cause tailbacks, traffic jams, etc.
As a translator, I find it fantastic that some kind soul in a library in Tallinn can scan a text I need to translate, send it to me in Holland as an attachment, and I can send to translation to the checker, also as an attachment, then to the publisher. This is great, modern, using current technology. And I am very happy that the internet, search engines, and e-mail have been invented. I even sit in the pub reading print-outs from my computer.
But when I get into bed, I will be reading a book made of paper and published in 1945, 1948, 1955, 2007, 2008, or 2009. (That's part of the pile next to my bed.) I still love books made out of paper - even though I can't read them all at once.
SlowRain
09-Dec-2009, 03:41
Bjorn and Eric, I can agree with everything in these last two posts.
I think the comparison to a leaf blower shows more of a knee-jerk dislike of ebooks than an actual honest, non-biased evaluation of the pros and cons of each.
I think the comparison to a leaf blower shows more of a knee-jerk dislike of ebooks than an actual honest, non-biased evaluation of the pros and cons of each.
SlowRain,
Methinks you misinterpreted my post, which I must admit does lend itself to misinterpretation. You see, for me, the invention of the leafblower was a giant step for mankind, up there with the invention of the printing press and eyeglasses, and not much less significant than Al Gore's invention of the internet.
After all, with a leafblower you can blow the leaves out of a bamboo thicket or a large bed of monkey grass or even out from under a row of parked cars, all while creating an amazing cloud of dust, leaves, and old candy wrappers. To top it off, it gives you a perfectly legal way to bug the bejesus out of your neighbors. Back in the 1980s I even set one up next to an old bathtub so I could get a jacuzzi effect when I took a bath. Try doing all those things with, as it were, a garden-variety rake.
So, to make things clear, when I said "an ebook is to a book as a leafblower is to a rake," it was simply to highlight the multiplicity of applications available to the ebook user, and I did so with a comparison I thought would be familiar to all. I couldn't foresee you would take me to mine the the opposite of what I did.
SlowRain
10-Dec-2009, 02:33
My comment still stands.
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