{"id":6925,"date":"2013-01-02T18:43:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T02:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6925"},"modified":"2013-01-02T18:45:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T02:45:31","slug":"bookstores-in-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=6925","title":{"rendered":"Bookstores In Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"userpic=books\"Many years ago, there were predictions that the growth of the mega-bookstores such as Borders and Barnes and Noble would be the death of the Independent Bookstore. What a difference a few years makes. Borders<\/a> is bankrupt and gone<\/a>. As for Barnes and Noble… well, they just closed their last mega-bookstore in the Los Angeles city limits on New Years Eve (yes, Woodland Hills is closed<\/a>). There are still stores in the larger SoCal area (Calabasas, Thousand Oaks, Burbank, and a smaller Bookstar in the valley), but no mega-stores. Meanwhile, according to Publisher’s Weekly, Independent Bookstores have big holiday sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What prompted this post was a report on LA Observed about problems over at Cliffs<\/a>. Cliffs<\/a> is a gigantic used bookstore on Colorado Blvd<\/a>, around the corner from the Pasadena Playhouse and across the street from Vromans<\/a>, a great indi-bookstore.\u00a0 Cliffs<\/a>, which has been around for 25 years, is having trouble. Everything in Cliff’s large inventory is on sale for 15% off and they are hoping for a buyer to show up \u2014 and soon. If you are in the area, now is the time to go purchase a few used books. Owner Cliff Gildart apparently doesn’t come in anymore, due to age and illness.<\/p>\n

This is very sad. We used to always hit Cliffs when we would go to the Playhouse. We need to support our used booksellers. They are a vital force in the book ecosystem, preventing precious books from being trashed when they are no longer wanted. They are the no-kill shelters of the book world<\/a>. We’ve already lost Bookie Joint<\/a> (run by a long time MLJ subscriber), although he is online<\/a>.\u00a0 We need to keep places like Cliffs, Brand Books<\/a>, Bargain Books<\/a>, Books5150<\/a>, and others of their ilk alive. Luckily, there are some happy stories, such as the success of used bookstores in East Los Angeles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We can’t let books (and music) go all digital, where you just lease knowledge instead of owning it. Let’s fight for the independent bookstores and the used bookstores!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, there were predictions that the growth of the mega-bookstores such as Borders and Barnes and Noble would be the death of the Independent Bookstore. What a difference a few years makes. Borders is bankrupt and gone. As for Barnes and Noble… well, they just closed their last mega-bookstore in the Los Angeles Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,36],"tags":[459],"class_list":["post-6925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","category-rant","tag-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6925"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6970,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6925\/revisions\/6970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}