went to borders to spend the last of my gift voucher (pilfered from my dad). before that i was at kino looking for plane books and passed over the discovery of heaven for calvino's italian folktales. i was dismayed to find the discovery of heaven in a grotesque huge penguin with an ugly orange spine and i found a glaring misprint immediately (chapter 4 printed as 34) so i say to myself, borders is sure to have this book and maybe it'll be the earlier black-spined edition and if it unfortunately turns out to be the same one, i can always buy it over there. on the otherhand, i know from experience borders stocks a pitiful collection of calvino, so they won't have this, which i would like to have to keep. so far, i'm happy with what i think is a wise and economical decision. i trot down the road to borders where, to my greater dismay, they have five copies of the procedure, but none of the discovery. so i will now have to go back to kino and buy t.d.o.h with the abominable misprint. the final injury? borders did too have italian folktales, a much prettier edition, for half the price of the other. nmind, i say, i will use my voucher and get some children's books. i got von a copy of trumpet of the swan (he told me he'd never read it before, but he has, in fact, sigh) and i get my dad a copy of the wonderful fool (this shusaku endo book about a bumbling frenchman in japan, my dad is reading it now and tells me amusing bits) and now i have $9 left over to get myself a copy of wind in the door (to replace the one i'd given away) but they're all out. i pass the phantom tollbooth and went back to kino, only to find they have no wind in the door either, and phantom tollbooth costs $3 more there. back to borders? growl.

why do kino and borders feel so different as bookstores? borders is soft-carpeted, always playing jazz of some kind or another, bright-lit. kino has sumptious woodflooring (your heels make a flat tapping sound on them) and a proper stationery section, which more than makes up for them having no music section. they do play music, but so soft it's barely noticeable. i like how kino has real multilingual sections too, not just a few obligatory shelves of "foreign language". kino is frightfully cramped though, and borders, now that it has been massively rearranged, is even more spacious than ever. incidentally it has been rearranged. when? before june certainly. the former literature section is now computers and other references and the old reference and children's section is now a giant fiction section. the children's section is now a swamp planted near music, good for them, no more children making a din at the busiest part of the bookstore. i like this new arrangement which is welcoming and much more conducive to browsing. i find kino's layout confusing and some shelves too high. and you can't plop yourself down in the children's section. in fact, it's an awful design for a children's section, isn't it? the raised platform, the relative darkness, the high shelves, narrow aisles, and the many display tables that are potential hazards. (while i was there, a stack of goblet of fire fell off a table twice) there isn't much space to sit either. they're physically very different, but they do feel very different too, and i think that difference is in terms of their philosophy towards books, i think, and towards service. i was in the children's section in both bookstores, and the expensive, oversized hardcovers in kino are always wrapped, without browsing copies, and how can you buy without looking within? at borders i bought two because i looked in them and found them fascinating. kino's layout discourages browsing, but at borders you are free to read as much as you like, which goes with the carpeted floor. in jc, addy once got through four-fifths of some massive tome by going in every afternoon and reading as much as she could, and finally bought the book because in that late stage of your relationship with a book you have to bring it home. at kino that would never happen. buy the book first, the relationship can come later!