A Eulogy for Borders

For when the vibe is nostalgic, rosy, and saccharine.

Borders on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago

When I was young my dad regularly took me to Borders Bookstores in Chicago to pick out new books, read to me, and spend time together just talking – about what we read, what we were thinking about, and the world around us. We waited for books to come out like I now wait for the newest season of ‘Love Is Blind’ to drop, and regularly pre-ordered volumes that we would pick up together…almost always from Borders.

Borders was the best-smelling bookstore in the game. Even now when I think about all the time that I spent there, the smell of the place is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s so visceral in my memory I can almost imagine that I am there now. New books with crisp, unopened pages were the dominant smell of course, but they were interwoven with the delicate smells of wooden bookshelves and leather chairs and fresh coffee and warm chocolate.

My favorite Borders was a multi-level affair cadi-corner to the famous “Water Tower Place.” There was a café on the top floor facing huge windows lined with seats of various kinds. Light poured in, never too bright, never too hot, but just right for hours of comfortable sitting. And from the window you had the perfect vantage point to observe the heavily-trafficked pedestrian corridor created by the old Water Tower (famously one of the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire).

When we went, my dad and I would make our way slowly through the stacks and floors of books, stopping to peruse anything that caught our eye, sometimes picking up a new volume that we had come to purchase, until eventually we would arrive at the café.

Once there, fresh book in hand, my dad would buy himself a coffee and me the best hot chocolate ever conceived. This hot chocolate was rich and sweet, and topped by a mountain of whipped cream which on one side was sprinkled with white chocolate shavings and on the other drizzled with dark chocolate sauce. The whole thing was served with a small milk chocolate bar. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Anyway, we would drink our beverages under the perfect light of the window and he would read to me, and sometimes I would read to him, and sometimes we would people watch, and sometimes we would talk about what we wanted for dinner. We would spend hours, and more often whole days just so. We read all of Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Artemis Fowl, some Ray Bradberry, and H.G. Wells, and more. These are some of the best memories of my life.

Borders closed in 2011, to great personal tragedy. The Water Tower location later became a Topshop that also closed. I am so glad that brick-and-mortar bookstores are making a comeback. I like Barnes and Noble as much as the next guy. I’m grateful to have somewhere to drink hot chocolate and read to my son. Borders was and is the GOAT.