To the borderline

Borders has recently opened a shop in Wellington. As someone who has read Dykes To Watch Out For and mourns the fate of Madwimmin Books* I am a little concerned at this but here some of the good things about it:

• My sister, who used to live in the States, points out that Borders isn't a great bookshop, what it is a cafe which also sells books and that makes it a damn good cafe. The only other cafe which sells books (and music) in Wellington is Parsons. I don't like the cafe at Parsons and I've only ever found the rest useful for buying classical music and birthday presents for my aunt, neither of which I do frequently.
• Borders is close to my work.
• The authors I am reading most at the moment are all accidentally Americans (Ursula Le Guin, Tony Hillerman and Orson Scott Card). Borders has American editions so their books are available there first before they have been published by people who can spell.
• The areas where Borders does best it is competing for my book buying dollar against Amazon not against my favourite bookshop, Arty Bees.
• Someone once told me that 10% of people buy 90% of books. So to keep Wellington properly supplied with bookshops I obviously need to support 100% of the bookshops.

* Madwimmin Books was a fictional independent local women's bookshop closed down due to competition from fictional bookshops including Bounders.