Bittersweet.

Most of you by now will have heard that Borders & Angus & Robertson are in a whole world of hurt right now & have entered into voluntary receivership.

This makes me sad. I loved Borders, LOVED. I used to work at Borders Bondi; I was there before it even opened, sorting the books onto the shelves & stepping gingerly between unsecured tiles. I loved it from the start – it was my kind of store & the people that worked in that store were my kind of people. It’s the only job I have ever liked, & I have thought since leaving to have Miss Punk that one day I would work at Borders again… but, well, it doesn’t look likely now.

There has been much talk about the evils of eBooks & buying books online, & while those two things may well have contributed to the financial dire straits that the company found itself in, I doubt they were the only factors & I’m not the only one.

Ironically, The Boy received an ereader for his birthday on Thursday – the Borders affiliated Kobo – and a Borders gift card. Not only did that mean that I now have myself a shiny new Kobo (he had zero interest & although I was excited initially I have deducted that ereaders are, disappointingly, not ‘all that’…), but that The Boy had an acute need to get in store to spend that voucher. We heard on the radio that there had been conditions placed on gift vouchers due to the current ‘situation’; in order to redeem you have to spend the same amount of the gift voucher’s worth; ie: If you have a $50 gift voucher you have to spend $100 in total, & as annoying as that seemed, the lure of a 40% off offer saw us head in yesterday afternoon for a bit of a book buying frenzy.

The Boy stocked up on gardening books & I picked up Pip’s new book, as well as the new Frankie; I wasn’t going to get Frankie (I have been trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, as it gives my inner hoarder pangs of regret still, to think I recycled my Frankie collection in a fit of insanity), but it was at the counter & we had to make up the money to use the gift card as our calculations as far as the discount went were a bit off; I’m glad I got it, it looks good, just like the fresh, fun mag I discovered when it was brand-spanking-new… although it makes me feel old to think that it’s “already” up to issue 40.

We had coffee & chai & jelly slice in Gloria Jeans & chillaxed mid-shop, & it was nice. It reminded me of the days & long nights I used to work & was just a pleasant way to spend the afternoon; but it made me sad to think that we might not be able to do that for much longer.