A Vulture's Tale
13/07/2011 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaA Vulture’s Tale
Friday marked the end of an era. Borders was the biggest thing in books when it opened its store in Hay St Mall back in May 2006.
Friday 8th July was the day that Borders finally closed its big fat doors. Before this enormous bookish barn was born, the shop used to belong to Angus and Robertsons. And now they are both gone. It’s sort of sad in a way but they have no one to blame but themselves. That’s what you get when you kill the goose that laid the golden egg
February was when the liquidators got called in. The Angus and Robertson shops were the first to go. Borders looked like it might get a stay of execution but that turned out to be a rather short lived thing indeed
Did the vulture thing when the book shop at the railway station started the 50% off sale. But aside from the place being packed like a tin of sardines, the sad truth was that there was just about nothing worth bothering with even with such a significant discount. As a long time lurker in libraries and at Amazon, it’s got to be good to get the silver sickles slinking out of this serpent’s wallet.
Indulged in one book about the evils of instant gratification but did not bother darkening the door after that. The place had been full of typical airport novels, self help books, romances and stacks of Stephenie Meyer stuff
A few months later was walking past their flagship store in the city centre and watched as the removalists gutted the interior and began the transformation into yet another large, cheap and nasty fashion store. Yesss. Just what dreary old Dursleyville needs more of.
But it was mid June that the serious vulture business began. The liquidators had decided to inflict the killing curse on the biggest book store the city had ever seen. Not in one instant flash of green light but death by a thousand cuts. The first of those was probably 20%. By the time the serpent sniffed out the carnage they were up to 40%. One of the junkies at the book binding class said there was a mailing list and she was on it. First in, best dressed.
This city store had the best collection of tarot cards of any mainstream book shop but by that stage the whole downstairs fluffy bunny new age, history, religion and self help sections were sectioned off and the remaining contents moved elsewhere.
There were lots of cooking, art and architecture books down in the basement - including the very promisingly titled but rather drab “A Pattern Language” for the princely original price of $120.
The dvds were downstairs too. With original price tags on most of them of $39.95 it was little wonder that so many still remained. Maybe they had put up the original prices especially for the sale.
Next stop was upstairs at the reference section. The serpent spied a very fat and juicy Oxford Russian dictionary but pretty quickly dumped it when finding a certain sticker on the back. $149! No wonder these buggers are going broke when the same book would be around $40 on any half arsed online bookstore.
Could have been tempted at twenty but for all the Izzie ever uses such a thing in these lazy days of other temptations, will quite happily rely on the good old musty East German VEB special gathering dust in the book shelf downstairs
There was basically bugger all worth bothering with at that sale. Got two scrooge cook books and Clive Hamilton’s “Affluenza” along with some pretty pieces of wrapping paper
Did not bother darkening the door there the following Wednesday 22nd. It was a glorious sunny day much better spent near the old graveyard on Plain Street reading a free copy of “Full Dark, No Stars”
Must review it some time. Just finished it today and loved it. Such tasty delicious ratty morsels
But Friday 24th June was a rainy miserable day. Perfect place for a bit of doom and gloom. This time it was the inner vampire let loose. Noted with great glee the stacks and stacks of twihard stuff. Not just the actual books themselves but all the spin off stuff - the movies and all the imitators. Figured that there could be some entertainment in the official guide with the gorgeous black cover and picture of jigsaw pieces on the cover.
The guy at the counter tried the old “Would you like fries with that?” routine by pointing out the very very large stacks of black books with mysterious egg timers on the cover also known as “The very short life of Bree Tanner” a steal at a mere $2.50 and hardback too!
Declined the offer knowing that there was so many we could safely return for the 70% sale and still not miss out
Been glancing at snippets of this ultimate guide - original price $36 and probably available at Amazon for less than ⅓ of that at everyday prices
Most looking forward to the 66 pages of an interview mostly dedicated to advice for would be writers. Ms Meyer is such a name dropper. She seems to have some sort of obsession with a certain William Shakespeare which unfortunately does not include channelling him.
Stephen King’s character Wilfred James is infinitely more entertaining in his name dropping of novels he’s read than Bimbo Bella or her muggle mother ever will be.
Did eventually get the Bree Tanner in the 60% sale. Should have gotten more than one as there is one thing we must say in favor of S M and friends- the books as objects are exquisitely beautiful- gorgeous art work, type face and that sort of thing. It’s just the story itself that is the problem
Even indulged in the ritual of a coffee in Gloria Jeans that day. No 60% discount there - just $3.80 for a mediocre flat white coffee in a crappy paper cup. It was the second and last time to ever have a coffee there. Went there shortly after it opened just out of curiosity. A cafe in the middle of a book stoer was unheard of in Dursleyville in those dark days. When the first got served in a paper cup, swore I’d never darken the door again. In a way it was almost a serpentine sense of schadenfreude.
Tuesday 5th July was the last serpent peek in the place. By then it was a wasteland. Mainly ancient computer books, politics from the dark ages - ie biographies of Mark Latham and a certain lying rodent, lots of Twilight clones and other slushy romances and a handful of dvds at 90% discount.
At that price could finally justify buying educational materials such as Wes Craven’s “The Serpent and the Rainbow” and assorted Saw movies
Gloria Jeans was already gone by then. No great loss.
It was all such a sad and sordid affair that even being in the city and walking past the doors of this cavernous place could not tempt the Izzie’s inner vulture in on its very last trading day.
Went instead to a funeral of someone far more worthy of being remembered and commemorated but that is a story for another day.
Friday marked the end of an era. Borders was the biggest thing in books when it opened its store in Hay St Mall back in May 2006.
Friday 8th July was the day that Borders finally closed its big fat doors. Before this enormous bookish barn was born, the shop used to belong to Angus and Robertsons. And now they are both gone. It’s sort of sad in a way but they have no one to blame but themselves. That’s what you get when you kill the goose that laid the golden egg
February was when the liquidators got called in. The Angus and Robertson shops were the first to go. Borders looked like it might get a stay of execution but that turned out to be a rather short lived thing indeed
Did the vulture thing when the book shop at the railway station started the 50% off sale. But aside from the place being packed like a tin of sardines, the sad truth was that there was just about nothing worth bothering with even with such a significant discount. As a long time lurker in libraries and at Amazon, it’s got to be good to get the silver sickles slinking out of this serpent’s wallet.
Indulged in one book about the evils of instant gratification but did not bother darkening the door after that. The place had been full of typical airport novels, self help books, romances and stacks of Stephenie Meyer stuff
A few months later was walking past their flagship store in the city centre and watched as the removalists gutted the interior and began the transformation into yet another large, cheap and nasty fashion store. Yesss. Just what dreary old Dursleyville needs more of.
But it was mid June that the serious vulture business began. The liquidators had decided to inflict the killing curse on the biggest book store the city had ever seen. Not in one instant flash of green light but death by a thousand cuts. The first of those was probably 20%. By the time the serpent sniffed out the carnage they were up to 40%. One of the junkies at the book binding class said there was a mailing list and she was on it. First in, best dressed.
This city store had the best collection of tarot cards of any mainstream book shop but by that stage the whole downstairs fluffy bunny new age, history, religion and self help sections were sectioned off and the remaining contents moved elsewhere.
There were lots of cooking, art and architecture books down in the basement - including the very promisingly titled but rather drab “A Pattern Language” for the princely original price of $120.
The dvds were downstairs too. With original price tags on most of them of $39.95 it was little wonder that so many still remained. Maybe they had put up the original prices especially for the sale.
Next stop was upstairs at the reference section. The serpent spied a very fat and juicy Oxford Russian dictionary but pretty quickly dumped it when finding a certain sticker on the back. $149! No wonder these buggers are going broke when the same book would be around $40 on any half arsed online bookstore.
Could have been tempted at twenty but for all the Izzie ever uses such a thing in these lazy days of other temptations, will quite happily rely on the good old musty East German VEB special gathering dust in the book shelf downstairs
There was basically bugger all worth bothering with at that sale. Got two scrooge cook books and Clive Hamilton’s “Affluenza” along with some pretty pieces of wrapping paper
Did not bother darkening the door there the following Wednesday 22nd. It was a glorious sunny day much better spent near the old graveyard on Plain Street reading a free copy of “Full Dark, No Stars”
Must review it some time. Just finished it today and loved it. Such tasty delicious ratty morsels
But Friday 24th June was a rainy miserable day. Perfect place for a bit of doom and gloom. This time it was the inner vampire let loose. Noted with great glee the stacks and stacks of twihard stuff. Not just the actual books themselves but all the spin off stuff - the movies and all the imitators. Figured that there could be some entertainment in the official guide with the gorgeous black cover and picture of jigsaw pieces on the cover.
The guy at the counter tried the old “Would you like fries with that?” routine by pointing out the very very large stacks of black books with mysterious egg timers on the cover also known as “The very short life of Bree Tanner” a steal at a mere $2.50 and hardback too!
Declined the offer knowing that there was so many we could safely return for the 70% sale and still not miss out
Been glancing at snippets of this ultimate guide - original price $36 and probably available at Amazon for less than ⅓ of that at everyday prices
Most looking forward to the 66 pages of an interview mostly dedicated to advice for would be writers. Ms Meyer is such a name dropper. She seems to have some sort of obsession with a certain William Shakespeare which unfortunately does not include channelling him.
Stephen King’s character Wilfred James is infinitely more entertaining in his name dropping of novels he’s read than Bimbo Bella or her muggle mother ever will be.
Did eventually get the Bree Tanner in the 60% sale. Should have gotten more than one as there is one thing we must say in favor of S M and friends- the books as objects are exquisitely beautiful- gorgeous art work, type face and that sort of thing. It’s just the story itself that is the problem
Even indulged in the ritual of a coffee in Gloria Jeans that day. No 60% discount there - just $3.80 for a mediocre flat white coffee in a crappy paper cup. It was the second and last time to ever have a coffee there. Went there shortly after it opened just out of curiosity. A cafe in the middle of a book stoer was unheard of in Dursleyville in those dark days. When the first got served in a paper cup, swore I’d never darken the door again. In a way it was almost a serpentine sense of schadenfreude.
Tuesday 5th July was the last serpent peek in the place. By then it was a wasteland. Mainly ancient computer books, politics from the dark ages - ie biographies of Mark Latham and a certain lying rodent, lots of Twilight clones and other slushy romances and a handful of dvds at 90% discount.
At that price could finally justify buying educational materials such as Wes Craven’s “The Serpent and the Rainbow” and assorted Saw movies
Gloria Jeans was already gone by then. No great loss.
It was all such a sad and sordid affair that even being in the city and walking past the doors of this cavernous place could not tempt the Izzie’s inner vulture in on its very last trading day.
Went instead to a funeral of someone far more worthy of being remembered and commemorated but that is a story for another day.
