Allow me, for a moment, to speak as a voice from the too-often self-censored independent bookstore world: being an indie bookseller is a rough and thankless task.  That’s why, when I saw Borders UK was closing its doors (to paraphrase the great poet CeCe Peniston, on a matter of equal importance: “finally”), my thoughts turned to how much better the independent book world would be if the drool-spewing, slobbering, fat behemoth that is Borders U.S. would finally topple for good.

So much so, in fact, that I decided recently to tweet about it. And tweet about it. And, well, yes, tweet more. In fact:

Strong words? Not really strong enough, actually. Don’t get me wrong: I both have my share of problems with indie bookstores and have spent my share of cash at the Borders “Buy 2 Paperbacks Get 20 Free” sale (great business model, yeah?). But in the book selling landscape as it is now (little does the public at large know that it was this very landscape Cormac McCarthy was envisioning when he wrote The Road), Borders attempt at basically being the drunk girl at someone else’s birthday (“Imma throw myself at EVERYONE”)-fails miserably for one very, very simple reason:

they don’t care about books.

“But Borders sells more than books,” you say. This is true. They are DVDs and board games and LOLcats calendars (oh, shit, that reminds me I need to get a 2010 “Famous Pugs” day calendar). However, book selling has been proven time and again to be an ages-old occupation that operates outside of the realms of logic and reason, requiring *gasp* care and love and concern and a working knowledge of the product you’re selling.

This is where the independent bookstores, and those who work in them, get it right. To quote what Gary Vee Vaynerchuck VanCrushit said about Zappos, independent booksellers beat their big box competitors “at the care game”, recognizing that they can’t match the crazy “80 Paperbacks In A Big Ol Box” price-busting of their larger competitors and choosing instead to bank on the fact that books and book lovers are unique creatures. To some degree, we’ve seen Barnes and Noble, Borders more attractive, thinner and better at tennis sister, step their game up as the indie booksellers begin to rise in prominence and notoriety. Borders, however, has basically given the middle finger to books and the people who care about them. Walk into a Borders and try to find an associate to recommend a book. Hell, walk into a Borders and try to find a literate associate. It’s not going to happen. Further, they’ve done what amounts to stopping in-store ordering of titles, telling customers to “get the book online” for major (read as: Dan Brown) titles and that they’re basically shit out of luck for smaller ones. I can’t begin to count the number of authors I know published by smaller presses who have told me Borders has claimed their books just don’t exist.

You just can’t behave like that in an economy like this, and when you’re basing any amount of income on books you need to know your customer, and you need to know why your customer should spend $27 on the latest Julie Powell dirt with you rather than buy it for half of that on Amazon. Though they may tend to rose-tint their outlook, at least publicly, that’s a question indie bookstores have an answer to that Borders doesn’t.

The other question Borders U.S. can’t answer: why it’s still around. Close, fall on your face you unnecessary monster. We’re not gonna mourn you, but rather cheer as another bastion of the bloated retail landscape dies a needed death.