After yoga this afternoon, Rob and I went to Barnes and Noble at Union Square because I needed to find a reference book for Macromedia Flash MX 2004. I love bookstores, but Barnes and Noble always perplexes me. It seems they carry fewer books all the time, in favor of such sundries as yoga mats, wrapping paper, calendars, and tchotchkes of a most heinous variety. I have to wonder if they are losing touch with their target audience. One section is labeled “Gifts for Readers,” which one would think a bookstore would know something about, but Barnes and Noble apparently does not. They treat “readers” as if they are a myopic, cave-dwelling species that requires full-page magnifying sheets and teeny little lamps clipped to the covers of their books, or as if they have just flown in from the Middle Ages and need to stock up on sealing wax and quill pens.

I am all for not buying books as gifts for “readers,” because most “readers” I know like to choose their own books, but if you are ever in a shopping quandary, a gift certificate is a better choice than bookends shaped like William Shakespeare’s head.