Submitted by Tobi Tobias, Jan 14, 2007 19:06

This is so sad. I took my nine-year-old granddaughter to Ivy's some months ago to buy Tintin albums in English. This accomplished, we spent the rest of the afternoon in comfortable chairs that might have come from a grandmother's living room, reading aloud and to ourselves a good chunk of the work of Edward Gorey. I knew Gorey and wrote about him. I am a devotee of Tintin in French. These bookstores were places in which one could enjoy one's favorite authors to the fullest and pass the passion on to the rising generation. B&N online serves its purpose, I assume, but not with any panache or, for that matter, human feeling.

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