Here's an article to piss off my readership. From Slate, it's titled, "What Are Independent Bookstores Really Good For? Not much."

Our attachment to independent bookshops is, in part, affectation—a self-conscious desire to belong a particular community (or to seem to). Patronizing indies helps us think we are more literary or more offbeat than is often the case. There are similar phenomena in the world of indie music fans ("Top 40 has to be bad") and indie cinema, which rebels against stars and big-budget special effects. In each case the indie label is a deliberate marketing ploy to segregate, often artificially, one part of the market from the rest. But when it comes to providing simple access to the products you want, the superstores often do a better job of it than the small stores do: Borders and Barnes & Noble negotiate bigger discounts from publishers and have superior computer-driven inventory systems. The superstores' scale allows them to carry many more titles, usually several times more, than do most of the independents; so if you're looking for Arabic poetry you have a better chance of finding it at Barnes & Noble than at your local community bookstore.

So, what do you think my literary friends? Do you go to indie bookstores to look cool? Or is it because none of the superstores has anywhere near the selection of independent presses that the local places do? Also, can you really be upset over what someone named "Tyler" thinks? There's only been one cool Tyler, and I'm still kind of pissed at Palahniuk for giving him such a horrible yuppie child name.