Borders RIP

I was doing some christmas shopping yesterday and I went into Borders to have a look at their closing down sale. There's something very sad about a doomed shop with all those lurid closing down signs, people running around like mad getting bargains and messing up all the books in the process, and of course the depressed looking staff about to lose their jobs just before christmas. I witnessed it all with Woolworths, only that was a bit more mental with crying babies, enraged bargain hunting parents and plenty of crying staff.

ANYWAY I will miss Borders, it's a great shop (especially the one in Brighton because it's massive and has lots of obscure design magazines). I don't normally have the funds to buy full price new books, but sometime if the book is a classic and the cover is amazing I will shell out. Yesterday I got Alice in Wonderland and The Picture of Dorian Gray, which will be christmas reading along with Perfume and A Christmas Carol.

The two covers here are two of the best books I got from Borders, and I didn't mind shelling out for either of them. Both have great covers and both are essential reading. Everything is Illuminated was one of my summer reads 2 years ago and was totally amazing. Nineteen Eighty-Four just blew my mind, and I read it while working a soulless job at Lloyds so it made me a little bit depressed. If you haven't already, you should read them.