Works for me. I spend an inordinate amount of time at the local Barnes & Noble and would be very sad if they followed the path of Borders and went belly-up. The cafe there is pretty much my "third place", the one place you will likely find me if I'm not at home or at my office. And I don't just sit in the cafe and leech free wifi, I buy a lot of physical books, magazines, etc. there (as well as cafe items). So yeah, definitely do not ever want to see B&N fold.
Same here. I was pretty upset when the Borders in my city closed; a few years later, the closest B&N to me also shut down. 100% agree with the article writer that bookstores provide a sense of identity. I wonder if we're in the middle of a shift in how the culture chooses to do relationships - maybe the pandemic showed people that, on its own, the internet just isn't able to provide the social framework that people want? I don't know. It's probably too early to tell if all this stuff is a passing fancy, or the beginnings of a new mode of relating.
