A trip to the bookstore

As I was driving to the Borders bookstore today hoping to notice a book that piqued my attention, my thought was drawn to the lack of love of reading among the general population. Amidst various distractions (one of which ironically ends with the word 'Book') and the 140 character message era, it is no surprise that books are not something everyone finds comfort in. It is appalling to see headlines like 'Where is Bahrain?' and folks straining their brains to understand the US Electoral College. These can be attributed to the general disinterest in reading for pleasure. Statistics reveals that Americans spend two hours daily watching television and seven minutes reading!

With these thoughts, I finally reached Borders and entered the store half expecting a lazy afternoon with a few geeks in the engineering section and some mommies with their kiddos in the children section. My first thought when I entered the store was 'I must be in the wrong place'. Instead of a quiet bookstore, it more resembled a 'Black Friday' Walmart. It seemed the whole town had descended there. The kids section resembled more of a birthday party than a book store. People were going from aisle to aisle with a look of purpose and stacks of books in their hands. I could hear conversations like "Jack, how about this book ? I don't think you have this one".  or "You'll need this a year from now. Why don't you buy it ?". What ? Was I dreaming ?


Every parent seemed eager to get their children a book to read. The serpentine lines at the register intertwined with each other with folks balancing their books with their kids and it seemed that they were ready to let their kids loose but nothing would part them from their books!

Something had changed since I last time I pondered on our reading culture ...which was exactly 15 minutes ago ! I was very excited about what was happening - so excited that I didn't want to ask anyone the reason for fear of getting a 'Duh' moment. But ask I did ! The lady whom I checked with seemed amused at my question and she quietly pointed me to a big orange and yellow signs up in the ceiling ' STORE CLOSING SALE - EVERYTHING MUST GO - 20-40% off ' . I felt like a balloon which had just been pricked !.

Does it mean that to get people to read more, they would have to close more book stores? However,  if they close the book stores, they wouldn't have books to read - not sure how this paradox would be resolved.