Your helpful former Borders customer assistant knows you're a philistine. You read a book because you liked the movie or Oprah told you, you think Nicholas Sparks is a great author and don't even get this guy or gal started on Glenn Beck. more ›

Sometimes bankruptcy works, and sometimes it's just time for a total liquidation. Borders, the big box bookseller who hit financial woes and began shutting down select locations recently, is throwing in the towel, and closing up all of their remaining 399 stores. more ›

The LA County Board of Supervisors is considering a public hearing on a proposal to "cede 42 acres of L.A. County land to Orange County -- and annexing about 36 acres from the neighboring county," reports LA Now.Initiated by Orange County’s Board of Supervisors, the proposal intends to simplify the border of Long Beach... more ›

Borders bookstores are closing up all over, including several in the SoCal region, with more shut-downs just announced. In Pico Rivera, the Borders at the city's Towne Center is one of the first-round stores to get the ol' bankruptcy boot, but, as the Whittier Daily News reports, the bill for bringing books for sale to the community is still unpaid. more ›

More Borders bookstores will soon be closing the chapter on their retail residencies in 28 more locations, including in Los Angeles at Sunset and Vine. The Hollywood location, an anchor at the mixed-use development, will join the Glendale, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena, Valencia, and Oxnard locations in closing up shop for good in May, reports the Daily News. Currently the stores are in liquidation mode, and selling all their stock at a discount. more ›

Five years ago, the independent bookstore was likely fated to join the cassette tape: nostalgically revered, but tragically doomed. Despite hand picked recommendations, too-cool cashiers, and erudite small talk, the local bookstore didn’t stand a chance against the Big Guys—corporations like Barnes and Noble, Borders, and the true Iago of bookselling, Amazon. Then came the Kindle, the Nook, whatever the hell Sony makes, and all-too-quickly the local bookstore was thrown into certain extinction. Indie booksellers started looking less like the counter-culture revolutionaries they once were and more like, well, Luddites. But this month, something sensational happened: mega-chain Borders went belly-up and despite bleak predictions, many of LA’s indie bookstores aren’t just still standing—some are downright thriving. That’s right: mom-and-pop bookshops are back, baby. more ›

Borders, one of the country's last remaining multi-state book retailers, is expected to file for bankruptcy early next week. "This is likely to be ugly," says LA Observed, noting: "Initial plans are to close about 200 of the chain's 674 stores, with an option to shut down another 50. That's thousands of lost jobs." LAO says they counted around 35 SoCal stores on the Borders site. more ›

Karl Rove's Courage and Consequences book tour wasn't safe from protestors in Southern California yesterday when he visited Thousand Oaks and Beverly Hills. The day began in Ventura County at a Borders where a handful of protestors remained outside on the sidewalk. A couple of them made it inside and one apparently ripped the book front of Rove before he was "dragged" away from the Senior Advisor to Former President George Bush. The police were called, but no arrests apparently made (video above). more ›

If you were planning on leisurely filling out your one-click holiday shopping list this year, too bad. Amazon.com is running way behind. Or maybe they are blackmailing you into joining their new membership club, Amazon Prime. If you place an order today, December 8th, and pay for 2-day shipping, you can't trust your items will arrive by Christmas, much less in time for Hanukkah. They warn you: more ›

Local singer-songwriter Meiko (MySpace) -- featured previously here -- has been having quite a memorable week thus far. more ›

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Why wait until you get home to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when you can read it on the sidewalk moments after purchase? That's what these three decided to do. And after a few pages in, what's the Harry Potter review? "Pretty good." That doesn't sound like much of an enthusiastic answer, but give 'em a break, they were at Borders in Sherman Oaks by 5:30 a.m. Luckily, it wasn't an all-day... more ›