Remember this scene from You've Got Mail?
Joe Fox: Do you know what, we are gonna seduce them. We're gonna seduce them with our square footage, and our discounts, and our deep armchairs, and...
Joe Fox, Kevin: Our cappuccino.
Joe Fox: That's right. They're gonna hate us at the beginning, but...
Joe Fox, Kevin: - but we'll get 'em in the end.
Joe Fox: Do you know why?
Kevin: Why?
Joe Fox: Because we're going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants.
Empty shelves line a back wall of Coliseum Books in midtown Manhattan and a few customers flip through the remaining stock for bargains. After more than three decades the independent bookseller is closing its doors -- one of many bookshops across the United States that have fallen victim to the Internet, chain stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble, and large discounters.
It's sort of sad. On the other hand, somehow Barnes & Noble and Amazon don't bother me quite as much as Walmart does. Maybe it's because Walmart doesn't have deep armchairs.
