The Foundry Bookstore Closes After 29 Years
Henry Berliner, owner of The Foundry Bookstore in Connecticut, summarized one of the primary struggles for independent bookstores in a sentence: "Independents used to have 30 percent of book sales and the chains had 15; now the chains have the 30 percent." The intensification of competition and his wish to retire prompted Berliner to decide to close the 29-year-old bookstore, where he started out as a clerk a year after the store opened. The Foundry will close its doors on June 30.
Now that the June 21 release date of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is just days away, booksellers are making their last preparations for the industry's equivalent of grabbing a chamber full of golden snitches. Here's our final report on booksellers' plans to celebrate J.K. Rowling's latest, including story-writing contests, owl adoptions, goblets of butterbeer, and a midnight bazaar.