The tyranny of the bookseller marketplace

To loosely paraphrase an Oscar Wilde quote about books, there is no such thing as a good or bad bookseller. They are well run, or badly run. The latter go out of business. Let's hope that's all there is to the news that Borders Inc. is going belly up. The bookseller is set to liquidate its remaining 399 stores nationwide. The Week has four theories why it failed. Still, I am haunted by what Saint Augustine once said: "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." Yet even that last, feeble task seems increasingly problematic as brick & mortar booksellers disappear from society's landscape. Can Barnes & Noble be far behind? Hopefully, the e-book universe will pick up the slack. Otherwise, we're witnessing yet another pillar of civilization crumble before us.