Anyway, like I said I understand the sentiment about airport bookstores and B. Dalton. But you have to defend even your ugliest cousin because they are family and that’s what caused my defensiveness!

I was in an airport – somewhere that I can’t recall – that had a New York Times bookstore that was pretty good. It’s also hard to argue that the Powell’s in the Portland airport is terrible.

B. Dalton is not a bookstore… but it used to be. Back in my day we may not have had the depth that a true literature lover might crave but we had a good selection of National Book Award and Pulitzer winners from the present and the past. I read many good books while working there. I remember reading Cormac McCarthy and Paul Auster at the recommendation of other booksellers.

All of that being said, it’s not my go-to bookstore now that I don’t get 30% off. But I had to defend my old employer. They paid my way through college and bought me my first car.

Now, for airport bookstores…. there was a time in the early to mid-1990′s when a British bookstore chain, Waterstone’s, invaded the US. The anchor store was in Boston and another free-standing store was in downtown Chicago on Michigan Ave. They were three-stories of literary heaven. I almost fainted when I visited the Boston store.

Under the umbrella of another British chain, W H Smith, they opened airport stores in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Omaha, Anchorage, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. I ran two of the three stores in Atlanta and was the director for the openings of the three stores in Los Angeles.

Waterstone’s was a booksellers dream…. I was able to have 100% control over my inventory. I was free to order what I wanted when I wanted it. Our store on Concourse E catered more toward the world traveler, our store on Concourse B store was slightly more corporate. When it moved to Concourse A it doubled in size and the range was both wider and deeper with everything from cookbooks to a full shelf of Faulkner.

Yep, we had the Grishams and the Clancys and the Kings. Sue Grafton came to sign and was the nastiest person I ever met. Anne Perry also signed and was the nicest author I’ve worked with. (And to think that she was a murderer…)

Waterstone’s is now a thing of the past. I don’t know if it was too British for the average airport palate or if operating expenses were too high. All I know is that now the shell of what was once a bookstore of superior quality is now a home to every mass market piece of trash the “average” traveler wants to read. We tried… My stores were profitable for all but one quarter in one store. (There was a flood that closed 3/4 of the store but our budget was not adjusted accordingly.)

Anyway… I’m not really totally arguing with the quote above but had to be the voice that says, “I tried, dammit.”