A Last Visit To The UConn Co-op's Storrs Location

Last week the Connecticut children's literature community learned that there will be no Connecticut Children's Book Fair this fall. This came about because UConn's bookstore will no longer be run by a co-op but by Barnes and Noble. All the UConn bookstores at all its campuses will soon be B&N stores. After June 7, I've heard.

Why, yes, I do have a new shirt.

Yesterday I was in beautiful downtown Storrs and paid a visit to the UConn Co-op Bookstore at Storrs Center, a satellite of the college bookstore that opened just a few years ago. Sixty-percent off select books! It, too, will be a Barnes and Noble store, soon, though a small one.

I've heard Co-op staff have an opportunity to move to the new chain. Things could work out for them, at least.

The offerings in an independent bookstore are often different from those you find in chains. You sometimes see things you've never even heard of. Edgy things. Lovely things.

"I am the one. Take me home."

When I'm in an independent bookstore, I like to walk around until a book tells me it's supposed to go home with me. Today I was waiting for a book with a sixty-percent discount to tell me that. Finally, one did, Terry Pratchett's A Slip of the Keyboard, a collection of his nonfiction, which I had never heard of. I had heard of Fay Weldon's memoir, Auto da Fay. It was on a discount shelf, and now it is on mine.

These may be the last books I buy in that particular store building. I have no objections to Barnes & Nobles. In fact, I appreciate that, in this state, at least, the chain seems to be becoming more active with promoting childlit writers by providing them with appearance opportunities. However, as a general rule I have to say that B&N books don't call to me the way indie store books do.