I’ve flown to Denver and New York for the bookstores; taken a company trip to Portland just so I could hit Powell’s—even journeyed deep into shit-kicker Texas to Larry McMurtry’s glorious bookshop in Archer City. So last week, as I browsed the soon-to-close Reading Room in Mandalay Place—1,200 miles closer than Archer City and involving much less roadkill to get to—I felt retroactively guilty for not visiting it more, not doing enough to sustain its existence. I wanted to say “its vital existence,” but who’re we kidding? If bookstores were considered vital, it wouldn’t have taken a casino to keep the Valley’s only independent new-book store going this long. But that’s almost over; it will shut down at the end of the month—employees I asked hadn’t been told exactly when—a victim of corporate accounting. Sad, sad. It’s tiny by the standards of Barnes & Borders, but it’s more concentrated and packs 15 percent more nutrients, plus a staff who clearly loves books. Last week, one of them asked lightly if I could get him a job. Dude, I wish. But like you I’m a creature of words, easily trumped by numbers. I didn’t even feel like buying a book that day, but I’ll go back one last time, and so should everyone.