On bookstores 

Are bookstores dying out? This Barnes and Noble on Rt 1 in Norwalk, CT is only the second I had seen since walking out of Boston the previous week. The first was in Framingham. I would have passed a Border's while walking through Shrewsbury, but that store went out of business earlier this year. That's two Barnes and Nobles bookstores in an 180 mile stretch, but on that route I had passed many more of the other chains, like Home Depots, Lowe's, Wal-Marts, MacDonalds and Targets.