Schaumburg Borders' closing is a wake with bargains
This must have been how it was a century ago when horse-and-buggy enthusiasts flocked around the closing blacksmith shop to pay their respects to the widow and snatch up some bargains on ox yokes, branding irons and wagon whiffletree hooks.
As you enter the going-out-of-business Borders in Schaumburg, the first display you see hawks classic books from the blacksmith heyday of the 19th century. For book lovers, it is the best of times in that you can buy a combined copy of Charles Dickens' “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Great Expectations” on sale, and it is the worst of times in that the lowered expectations on book sales means that even two great literary novels can be had for a measly 12 bucks.
Bargain seekers have many options. They can buy Mitch Albom's best-selling “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” for less than a dollar a person. “The Vampire Diaries” 750-piece jigsaw puzzle fetches less than a penny a piece. And any Russian novel is cheaper per pound than hamburger.
The drama no doubt plays out as well in closing Borders in Oak Brook, Wheaton, Gurnee and Algonquin. Customers, some actually sticking out their lower lips and putting on their sad faces, mourn the death of another bookstore even as they scour the remains for bargains.
“Some sci-fi books,” South Elgin resident Randy Fye says, explaining the contents of his shopping bag. The 42-year-old business analyst uses his lunch hour to buy three bargain books (including Michael Crichton's “Prey”) for 20 bucks.
On the eve of setting off for her college career at the University of Virginia, Barrington's Austen Van Marwijk Kooy came across her supply of Borders gift cards that she had received as presents throughout high school.
“I found them in a wallet after four years,” she says. The 19-year-old bought a few books for college, and then had to go through the line again with more stuff in her attempt to extinguish all her gift cards.
“I used them all, and 67 cents extra,” she says.
“I got a calendar, so I can stay organized,” chips in younger sister Eleanore, 13, who also bought a pencil case for school with her supply of gift cards garnered from birthdays past.
“I bought a lot of coffee-table books,” says Amanda, the mom. “I was really surprised things were not more deeply discounted.”
For instance, “celebrity” autobiographies such as “They Call Me Baba Booey,” Susan Boyle's “The Woman I Was Born to Be,” and Chaz Bono's “Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man” are marked down only 40 percent from their original price of about $26. Most items are marked 30 to 50 percent off, but a few books are selling for dirt cheap.
Clutching a bag of two dozen kid books, Violet Zajdel of Schaumburg says she'll give those books to her 5½-year-old son Maks' day care. While the educational Little Einsteins books she chooses are a great bargain at a dollar a piece, those equally priced hardcover copies of “Burning Up: On Tour with the Jonas Brothers” might fall into the double-digit cents category if they don't sell soon.
The cost of an item doesn't always match its worth. A wacky “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” 2011 calendar featuring Jane Austen's female protagonists as the walking dead sells for $5.99. A hardback edition of that classic novel sells for a few bucks more, and a paperback version of the book sells for a couple of dollars less.
Bristol Palin's “Not Afraid of Life” is marked down to $15.60, just pennies more than mom Sarah's “America By Heart.” Buy both Palin books with a $50 bill and you will still have enough change left to buy a hardback copy of William Faulkner's “As I Lay Dying.”
For a little less than the cost of two Harlequin romances such as “Annie and the Red-Hot Italian” and “Sealed With a Kiss,” I buy a discounted American History Magazine featuring “Mark Twain In His Own Words.”
Reading Twain's account of 19th century life as I worry about the future of the written word, I am tempted to visit the borders.com website and download an e-book titled “The Blacksmith's Craft: A Primer of Tools and Methods” so I can learn how to make whiffletree hooks.