Reflections on the closing of Borders bookstore chain

Last week it was announced that Borders, the second largest bookstore chain in the country which once had stores dotting the suburban landscape, is closing its doors.

The news is hardly surprising, given the state of the economy and the transformation the Digital Age has wrought in the book industry.

And while it may mark the death of a bookstore brand, it does not mark the death of books. They are more readily available today than at any time in history — only increasingly by download more so than off a shelf.

Still, for romantic lovers like us of hard-bound books, it also is news that demands a pause at the least for both nostalgia and reflection.

“I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough,” one of the Founding Fathers, John Adams, wrote. “The more one reads, the more one sees we have to read.”

Like most of his contemporaries, at least those of comfortable means, Adams possessed a passion about the printed word, and in particular, books.

Imagine back. With no television to watch, no radio or MP3 player to listen to, no phones, no websites, no video games, no movies, no texting, books were the chief form of entertainment of the day. People wrote letters, and people read books. And in the process, they found peace and relaxation, charms seemingly lost in our multi-tasking, hyperactive age.

To build a personal library of books was in many respects, the mark of a man, of his intellect and of his success. Thomas Jefferson’s library at his mansion in Monticello was such a central focus that when he lost most of his collection in a fire, he obsessively built it back up with thousands more books.

Books. Storehouses of knowledge and information, fascinating vessels of the imagination, inspirations of eloquent literature, records of history — they are all these things.

If you stop and think about it, books have been the means that have separated humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Other animals learn essentially what a lifetime can teach. We learn what an accumulation of lifetimes teaches. That is primarily the result of books. Generations can and do pass down stories and wisdoms through conversation, but the limits of that transmission are fairly severe. Books extended that reach immensely.

Because of that, the life of a dog today is not much different from the life of a dog 2,000 years ago. But for human beings, a vast difference in lifestyles and understanding! The product not just of high intelligence, but of high intelligence wrapped and passed down in books.

The end of Borders is not the end of that transmission. Digital methods may not be as romantic to us, but they’re even more efficient in archiving oceans of information.

And for us romantics, it’s not the end of the hard-bound book either.

Remember “You’ve Got Mail,” the 1998 romantic comedy about progress near the dawn of the Digital Age? The Tom Hanks character led the mighty Fox Books chain that was putting the Meg Ryan character’s independent corner bookstore out of business. It wasn’t personal, as Joe Fox said; it was just business.

Some of those independent corner bookstores still exist and may even be making a comeback. As we write this, we think, for instance, of Anderson’s, a phenomenon of personal attention in Naperville. And there are many others.

What an irony that continued progress in the Digital Age may be leading to the death of Fox Books. And in the process, to a rebirth of The Shop Around the Corner.

Nostalgically, we romantics embrace those corner bookstores in relief, and we whisper, “We wanted it to be you.”