Where I live, Borders and Barnes & Noble are across the street from each other. Nevertheless, our Borders was around long before B&N, Starbucks, etc. When it first opened, it was one of the only "coffee shops" in town, PLUS it had all the books you'd ever want. At the time there were no other big bookseller chains, so Borders' 2 floors of books with the winding, spiral staircase at the center was pretty impressive. I remember begging my parents to drop me off there so I could hang out and read magazines and stuff.
I remember spending long afternoons studying for the SAT there and the LSAT.
Then, when I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, there was a massive Borders store (I think AA is the headquarters of Borders). That store was great, and they always had really good deals for starving college kids who wanted to read fiction!
Long story short, I preferred Borders to B&N even though I had a suspicion that the latter would win out in the end due to more aggressive marketing strategies and the nook, etc. Nevertheless, it always seemed to be "trying too hard" and you also had to pay to join the B&N Member Club, while the Borders Book Club was free. They also used to stock all the good, British Dramas at a 40% discount that B&N either didn't carry or charged a fortune for.
Good memories.
I won't really miss them their aren't any near my neighborhood.
