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Bookstores

Posted: 09 Jan 2012 06:43
by TenPoundHammer
There're of course Barnes & Noble, Southern player Books-a-Million, and the late lamented Borders. Were there ever any other "big box" bookstore chains?

Michigan has Schuler Books, with three stores in Grand Rapids and two in Lansing. Interestingly, Lansing just lost one of its two Barnes & Noble stores... even more interestingly, one Schuler's in Lansing is a mall anchor and the other is in a lifestyle center!

There's also Horizon books, with an enormous 3-story flagship in Traverse City and smaller branches in Cadillac and Petoskey.

(As an aside, I find it odd that except for Traverse City — now a Books-a-Million — that Borders never touched the west side of its home state. Lansing, Grand Rapids, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Muskegon — none of them ever had Borders.)

As far as the smaller ones. Besides Waldenbooks and B. Dalton, some that I know of were:

* Little Professor. I've seen these in towns of various sizes, even as small as Tawas City (where they were combined with a Hallmark and a drugstore). I can only think of one that was in a mall, though (Jackson Crossing). I thought they were defunct, but there are still a few around. http://www.littleprofessor.com/stores.html

* Bookworld. Another small-town chain throughout the midwest. I was in one in downtown Marquette and it felt like I was in an old Waldenbooks. Well, except for the humidor.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 09 Jan 2012 21:37
by TW-Upstate NY
I recall a store in one of the malls in Pa. when we lived there by the name of Paperback Booksimth. I think it was a chain but I'm not really sure. Sure had that chain store "feel" to it. Anybody else ever hear of them?

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 09 Jan 2012 22:36
by rich
Davis-Kidd--they've closed some stores but once spanned from Cleveland to Nashville; I think their base in Cincinnati or Louisville. Very nice stores.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 02:22
by javelin
Crown Books, owned by the same company that owned Trak Auto and Dart Drug, began to phase out their smaller stores for superstores that sold books, games and software.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 12 Jan 2012 03:55
by TenPoundHammer
TW-Upstate NY wrote:I recall a store in one of the malls in Pa. when we lived there by the name of Paperback Booksimth. I think it was a chain but I'm not really sure. Sure had that chain store "feel" to it. Anybody else ever hear of them?
They were indeed a chain. I've found reference to them being as far afield as Myrtle Beach. They were based in Boston.

As an aside, I really miss the Little Professor/Sav-Mor Drugs/Hallmark in Tawas City. The roof collapsed in the 1990s and they rebuilt it — only about half remains as a sterile, late 1990s drugstore, and the rest is a furniture store. I distinctly remember browsing the Garfield books there.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 19:13
by nysw3636
I remember a store called "Book and Record" in the late 70's to early 80's. They had a store in New Paltz, NY, in the same plaza that had a Barkers Department Store and a Great American Food Store. They had 2 other stores. One in Poughkeepsie and one in Wappinger Falls that I remember. Not sure if they had any others.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 20:00
by jamcool
There is also Hastings...the combo book store/CDs/DVDs place that is mostly in smaller towns.

In Arizona we have Bookman's , a super-sized new/used book store.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 12:25
by nysw3636
There was also Media Play.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 17:52
by martyk
In Sacramento, Tower Books (an offshoot of Tower Records) was the first Big Box Bookseller. Thier stores were always next door, but not always attached to the record stores.

Re: Bookstores

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 18:29
by Brian Lutz
I know that here in Downtown Bellevue there was a combination Tower Books and Records store that opened up around 1999, and closed when the chain went out of business.