When I was a kid there where no giant bookstores. We had Foot Locker sized mall stores like B.Dalton and Walden Books. We had a few independent stores sprinkled around the town. We had libraries. We were happy. Then everything changed.

I experienced my first super-mega bookstore when I was around 21 years old. It was a two-story Barnes & Nobel in Huntington Beach, California. It was enormous. Bigger than 5 normal bookstores combined. I was amazed. They had books and magazines I had never seen or even heard of. The web didn’t exist (note: the net did exist and technically the web did too but it wasn’t a good place to find or buy books) yet so the bookstore was an amazing place to learn and get inspired.

I bought a lot of books and Magazines in the 90's. And I have great memories that were forged in many of these stores. I spent most of 2003 in the Borders Cafe on Union Square in San Francisco. It’s been gone for years.

I still love these places. I still feel good walking in to one. I’ve been going and hanging out for 20 years. I used to buy things, back in the 90's. But I never buy anything now. I look, read, flip-through and enjoy but I never buy a book. I have a Kindle for that. I do buy coffee. I love having something to sip on while reading the books and magazines I’m not going to buy.

Now it’s over. I’m very sad. I killed the super-mega store. I bought my books from Amazon. I stream my music. I read periodicals online. I go to the bookstore to GO THERE. To BE there. Something you can’t do online. Amazon doesn’t “feel” good like a bookstore does. But now that’s over. What’s next?