Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for June 30, 2017

Barnes & Noble is better.

In the last panel, why isn’t Rat threatening to throw Stephan over the border?

I remember Borders; it was far superior to Barnes & Noble. Better selection, good service, deals that you didn’t have to pay an annual fee to get… I’m with Doctor Dan on this.

Gee, Doc. If you don’t have a Borders to read at, how about renewing the magazines in your waiting room.

OH! I thought maybe Doctors Without Borders were ones that Stephan drew without any black outlines around thhem.

Today’s travesty reminds me of what Virginia Mayo said to James Cagney in “The West Point Story”—-“Even for YOU this is a new low!”

Anyone remember Waldenbooks?? Of course at “Buns and Noodles” in Knoxville, I DID manage to score an autographed copy of “Pearls Gets Sacrificed” with a hand drawn picture of Rat signed by Stephen!

What are these ‘bookstores’ that you speak of?

Myself, I belong to that somewhat lesser known organization, Plumbers Without B Daltons.

I miss Chicago’s old Kroch’s and Brentano’s, my “must” every time I went into the city back in the day. (And If you read the Wikipedia article, let me add that I remember fondly dealing with Henry Tabor himself, who is mentioned prominently in the text.)

Now, though I used to deal with Blackwell’s as Kyle still does, I find they have become too modernized and “efficient” and have lost their charm; it’s Casemate/Oxbow for me now….

There’s still Barnes and Ignoble.

And then there’s Powell’s in Portland. Great place.

Stephan – I really enjoy your comics. Your puns make my day.

Brentano’s, Doubleday, Oxford, B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, Chapter 11, Rizzoli, Borders, Presbyterian, Cokesbury, Coles, Media Play, Family Christian, Lifeway Christian, Paper Chase, Tower, Barnes and Noble. Those are the bookstores that were operating in metro Atlanta when I moved here, at least the ones I recall off the top of my head. I’m sure there were more. All are gone save Barnes and Noble. Books-a-Million still operates, but they are a regional rather than national chain and they are one sixth the size of Barnes and Noble. There’s at least one borough of New York City with over a million people and NO BOOKSTORE at all. And Barnes and Noble is struggling, shrinking, closing stores, letting workers go. Amazon is great, Barnes and Noble online is pretty good. But it will be a sad day if finally there’s no longer any brick and mortar stores in which to browse books, to come across a wonderful book by accident or serendipity, to ask for information about a book before you buy, to get help making a selection.

Bookstores will probably be extinct in at least 5 years time. Enjoy them while you can.

xxx

I get all my books used at local thrift shops. Much cheaper.

I still have my Boarders rewards card on my key chain.

I once worked for Borders. This warms my heart.

We have several Half-Priced Books near us. I think the chain started in Texas and expanded outward. Love when they have their mega clearance at one of the local fairgrounds. Pretty much anything 3 bucks or less. They’re online too. Spend waayy to much time there, I’m running out of shelf space.

Libraries often receive donated books, many of which are duplicates that end up on their 50 cent sale table. Same for CD’s and DVD’s.

I miss Borders.

I have been in USA in 1998 and I bought a lot of books in that bookstore

The Borders bookstores in my country Malaysia are still open. Lucky me!