The only commercial fiction new book store on the island–Hastings–is closing!!
Oh noes!! Or, if I want to be a bit more literary, alas and alack! There is another new book store downtown, but it’s an independent, and it pretty much carries only lit’rary books, or books about the island, or maybe books written by people who live on the island. It does not carry books that will feed my jones for fantasy, science fiction, mystery, or–most especially–romance.
Yes, both Target and Wal-Mart are on the island. (Yay! It’s been forever since I haven’t had to drive either 15, 30 or 60 miles to get to one or the other.) But their book shelves lean heavily toward best-sellers, and Target only has one shelf of mass-market paperbacks. They have another shelf-row of trade-sized books, but most of those, I’m not really interested in reading. And the Target shelf is heavy with reprints and really hard, scary thriller-type books. Those are too scary for me. (I’ve had to stop reading Colleen Thompson’s HEAT LIGHTNING for a little while, because it’s getting so scary.) Wal-Mart’s book section is two to three times bigger than the Target section, but I really don’t like going to the local Wal-Mart. It’s nastier than most others I’ve been in…And they still only have one shelf-row of mass market, now that I think about it. They do have a larger selection of romances, though…
I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with this. I used to drive the 60 miles into Amarillo once a week, but I’m crossing the causeway only about once per month, these days. I may be buying more from catalogs or on line. We’ll see how it works out.
Meanwhile, I guess I’d better get a Blockbuster card, or sign up for Netflix…We get all our rental movies from Hastings too…