Looks like we struck a nerve with that last post

But it is sad but true that physical bookstores are very often used as "showrooms" by people wanting to browse books before ordering them on-line. This phenomenon is so important to amazon's sales that the books they have begun to publish themselves have not done well--because they are not on display in physical bookstores.

We did not, however, want to make everyone using a smart phone in our store feel unwelcome. Hey, we use the things ourselves! But given how widespread "showrooming" has become, we felt a need to point out that browsing local but ordering on-line is not a development we are thrilled with.

As for buying books for your kindle: we sell e-books that can be read on pretty much every device but a kindle. And that is because of amazon's policies, not ours. Amazon locks the kindle down to their site and their e-books. Of course there is a way you can hack your kindle and side-load e-books from non-amazon sources onto it. But you didn't hear that from us...