I went to one of the many Borders that're closing here in Chicago. It's in the mid-state of being picked over, and I was able to go through all the Fiction/Lit in about 20 minutes. In the course of my perusing, I noticed that they had Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford. This book has cropped up no less than three times in my life in the course of the last week, whereas before that I'd never heard of it. I thought 'Oh, well, you know the library has it, so just leave it there and save yourself $12.'
But as I wandered through the rest of the bookstore, I kept thinking 'But what if some horrible person who won't appreciate it, its subject or its delightful cover buys it?? What if, drawn in by the discount pricing, they just shove it in a pile with a bunch of other books and then either resell it to an even nastier person or leave it forgotten on the lowest, darkest shelf of a dingy bookcase, never to see the late night light of a Mighty Bright or be cared about as anyone with a scrap of decency would care about it? What if that happens, Alice??'
It is now resting comfortably on top of my Nurse Jackie DVDs at the side of my bed.

Great blog Alice! I wrote a little about the Borders situation in Australia here: http://scathingweekly.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-heard-news-today-oh-boy.html and saving books here: http://scathingweekly.blogspot.com/2011/03/great-book-experiment-1-frozen-read.html
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