...Borders had already pulled out of the Salt Lake area already (about a year ago, iirc), with Waldenbooks having gone some years before.

Books-a-Million doesn't operate here. That leaves Barnes & Noble as the only big-chain brick-and-mortar bookstore in the area.

The really down side of that is that the chains had already long since driven most of the small bookstores out of business. The only local store with any degree of commercial viability is Sam Weller's Bookstore, which itself nearly went out of business a couple of years ago. There are a very few small stores here and there, but they either survive on trade in other goods, or they are kept as hobbies or supplemental income (if the actual shop is in a wholly owned building, as with Gypsy Moon Emporium) by their owners, who survive on other income.

That, or they're Christian or Mormon bookstores, catering to an entirely different clientèle, and under an entirely different business model...

-Liz

Successor to the LToC