Death of the Independent Bookstore

No big news but another independent bookstore has bit the dust. Barbaras Books of Oak Park has gone the way of so many and left only an eight by eleven paper stuck to the door to elucidate that after forty years they have gone out of business. Of policy the death of the independent bookstore has been a foregone windup for years since the superstores moved into town. But still it is shocking when you walk up and the store is closed.

Oak Park is the home of Hemingway and Burroughs and is a literary town. Not many of those left whether but the town has always put the written word first. I had just left the attic of the Hemingway house when I decided to get a book. Rode my bike and just stopped and stared at the grocery bag paper covering the windows and the white paper posted on the door. Just like that. Gone with the wind.

Bookstore

Barbara's brought in many writers known and no so well known. The signings were intimate and sometimes they were well attended and many times not. Of policy they carried more alternative fiction than found in the chains and there were the little cards telling citizen what the staff notion of this book or that. There were couches to read on and alternative papers to thumb through.

While I stood and snapped pictures citizen walked up and read the notice. One man just shook his head. A woman muttered something and turned nearby and walked away. A incorporate of guys walked up and swore. One of the men hit the ground and threw back his arms screaming, "Man this is the question the generation behind us doesn't read! They just sit on their couch and play Xbox!" I took heart. He was in his twenties. another man said that a sandwich place was to take the space. "People would rather eat than read," he shrugged.

Death of the Independent Bookstore