Waldenbooks closing 200 stores in January

Employees were notified and there's a press release listing the stores being closed so it's now official.

One of the stores being closed is my local Waldenbooks, where I have numerous friends among the current and past employees. It's the place where I met jpsorrow--he was working there part-time to feed his book habit, and a mutual friend at the store introduced us.

It was your typical mall bookstore, but the staff made it different. They knew and loved books. I could walk in there and say "My sister used to like mysteries but now she's into conspiracy stuff, and anything historical is good, but not an obvious author that she'll have heard of like Dan Brown." And after about fifteen minutes of searching the shelves pulling out suggestions for me to look at, I'd have a nice care package of books to send to my sister, who would subsequently call to rave about the new authors I'd discovered for her.

Even when the official corporate policy was no local author events, they'd find a way to work the system so a local author could have her event, something members of the local RWA chapter were always grateful for.

The store closing isn't completely unexpected--Waldenbooks is in trouble, and the mall itself is dying, which was a bad combination. But it's still sad news, and I'm going to miss the store when it's gone.