All of these measures in place today -- the liquids and gels rules, the pointy object confiscations, the multiple ID checks, the body-scanners and the pat-downs -- would they have stopped the Sept. 11 attacks?

Of course not. The success of the 2001 attacks had nothing to do with box cutters. The hijackers' critical tool was an intangible one: the element of surprise. That is, taking advantage of our understanding and expectations of a hijacking. What weapons they had in their bags was irrelevant. They could have used anything.

For that matter, would any of these measures have prevented the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103? How about the bombings of Air India 182 or UTA 772?

Again the answer is no. It was bombs in the lower holds that got those planes.

I don't know about you, but when I'm on a plane I worry a lot more about what's going on below deck -- in checked luggage and cargo -- than I do about passengers and their carry-ons. The Transportation Security Administration tells us that all checked bags are scanned nowadays for explosives, and that's about the most valuable thing the agency does for us. I just hope agents do it with as much over-the-top scrutiny as they use to paw through carry-ons looking for forks and toothpaste.

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Why, then, is it so bloody hard to find a proper bookstore at an airport? Not all of us pre-load our reading material on a Kindle.

I was in Detroit the other day. The terminal at DTW is one of America's best, and the mile-long concourse is jammed with retail shops. But do you think I could find a book in there? If I wanted a diamond bracelet, a $300 Tumi briefcase or a cup of gourmet coffee, on the other hand, no problem.  But a book?

Sure, there are places selling books -- there are lots of places selling books -- provided you're interested in one of a tiny sample of titles. There was something vaguely North Korean about walking the length of the concourse and seeing the exact same hardcovers, over and over and over and over -- Steve Jobs staring out at me every 20 steps or so from the shelves of any of 50 different shops, all utterly indistinguishable from one another.

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Booksellers have been complaining about "showrooming" -- the practice of using a bookstore to browse and learn about new titles while buying the actual books online -- for a while now. Amazon's holiday-season gambit, and a New York Times op-ed denouncing it written by novelist Richard Russo, alerted readers who value their local bookstores to the possibility that those stores will vanish if we don't make a point of patronizing them.

But what if you prefer e-books? Because of my job, I rarely buy print books. (I get too many sent to me as it is.) Yet, for various reasons, I've found myself purchasing a surprising number of e-books to read on my iPad. At first, I automatically opted for Kindle books; the Kindle app for the iPad works great, and if I decide to switch to reading on my iPhone, it will automatically keep my place. Above all, Amazon has the richest and deepest online books database, where I can instantly find out whether a title is available in e-book (or audiobook) format, scan reader reviews and follow reader-generated tags to find similar titles.

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Even more striking was the book Kaplan giddily showed me: a new anthology of stories by South Florida writers called "Blue Christmas: Holidays Stories for the Rest of Us." (As a former Miamian, I’d written a piece for the collection.)

“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said, gazing at the deep-blue cover.

Kaplan is a guy who gets excited about all sorts of books. The difference, in this case, is that he published "Blue Christmas." More precisely, his new imprint, B&B Press, released the book. It thus represents a heartening trend in the brave new world of publishing. Rather than trimming their sails, a number of independent booksellers are taking a page from Amazon by producing titles themselves.

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Given recent news, you wouldn't be crazy to wonder whether launching a bookstore in 2011 is such a good idea. But a conversation with Patchett suggests that to her, Parnassus Books is less a make-or-break business risk than an investment in her community -- and a pulpit from which she can preach the gospel of the book.

Over the phone, the novelist described the development of Parnassus over the past few days, weeks and months -- and explained why the hundreds of thousands of dollars she's already poured into the project (and is prepared to lose) are already worth it, even if she's placed the wrong bet on the future of the book.

So -- how's it going so far?

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There was a time when the arrival of a mega-retailer like Borders -- which started as an independent in the college town of Ann Arbor, Mich. -- caused consternation in communities and great dismay among independent booksellers. While Borders couldn't compete on hand-selling great books to customers they'd known for years, the indies couldn't always compete with the lower prices, the coffee shops, the late-night hours. Doubtless, some of the booksellers and their employees who lost their livelihoods when Borders came to town and their shops closed are feeling a sense of schadenfreude.

But Borders also brought its stores to communities where there might not have been a long-standing independent. For many people, and for many writers, a Borders could be a shining cultural center off the highway.

Before heading over to check out the liquidation sales, we polled a variety of authors -- newcomers and veterans, prize-winners and best-sellers -- about their Borders memories and their thoughts about the future of book buying.

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1. Set of three Harry Potter proofs: "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"; "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"; "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." (1997-99)

Price: $27,500.

From the listing: These were the only titles for which there were proof copies done: after the third book, Bloomsbury did not print or issue prepublication proofs. Reportedly, there were only 200 copies of the proof for Philosopher's Stone and only 50 copies of the purple proof for Prisoner of Azkaban, which means that no more than 50 sets such as this could ever be assembled, making this perhaps the rarest set of Harry Potter items possible.

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What makes a bookstore beautiful? As their numbers dwindle in so many places, just having the doors open may qualify. Many of the shops in this slide show took over repurposed buildings whose previous tenants were once important local institutions like glove factories, theaters, friaries and grist mills. All of them are brimming over with beauty of one kind or another -- opulent architecture, quirky one-of-a-kind collections, unique ways of encouraging exploration, teetering stacks of mystery and chaos that reflect a community's reading habits. It's terrifying to consider that the generations alive today may be the last to experience the serendipity of scouring shelves of books side by side with other bibliophiles.

Found a bookstore on your travels that is worth making a special trip? Tell us about it in the comments. You can find more indie bookstores on Trazzler.com.

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The second was Borders, the chain bookseller that declared bankruptcy on Wednesday. As a freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I was awed by the sight of the original Borders, on State Street. Never in my 18 years had I seen two stories of books. I spent nearly as much time reading at Borders as I spent reading in class while my professors lectured. There was nothing to do at Borders but read. In the mid-1980s, a coffee shop was still a diner that served pancakes until 11 a.m.

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The 40-year-old company plans to close about 200 of its 642 stores over the next few weeks. All of the stores closed will be superstores, Borders spokeswoman Mary Davis said. The company also operates smaller Waldenbooks and Borders Express stores.

Borders Group Inc. President Mike Edwards said in a written statement that cautious consumer spending, negotiations with publishers and other vendors and a lack of liquidity made it clear Borders "does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor."

Borders plans to operate normally and honor gift cards and its loyalty program as it reorganizes.

The company will receive $505 million in debtor-in-possession financing from GE Capital and others to help it reorganize. In January, Borders said it was considering a bankruptcy filing after it received a conditional $550 million loan from GE Capital that required it to secure financing elsewhere.

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What I didn't expect, however, was that publishers would be so incredibly foolish as to start raising e-book prices to the point that they were close to, and in a few cases above, the hardcover prices. Here's a non-literary term for this policy: nuts.

I've been keeping loose track of this trend for months, and had noticed that some hardcover books were getting close to the Kindle prices. Then the barrier fell, as the New York Times reported this week, when at least two books actually were more costly to read on Kindle devices than the actual physical book.

How did this happen? It's a classic Traditional Media vs. the Digital Age story. The key players are Amazon, the major book publishers and Apple.

Like other booksellers, Amazon buys physical books from publishers at a wholesale price, typically half the suggested retail price. And, like some other booksellers, Amazon sells the books to customers, usually at a small markup. There's nothing stopping booksellers from selling below their costs, as "loss-leaders," if they choose.

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There's just one problem: The book may be an Updikean triumph that expertly limns the messy interior lives of a lost middle-class navigating a spiritually dead post-industrial America, but it's not available for purchase yet. And Obama didn't even pay for it.

According to Mark Knoller's Twitter, the nation's foremost source of Obama administration trivia:

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With the new agreement, which both companies declined to detail, Penguin's newest e-books will begin selling through Amazon. In April, Penguin halted sales of new e-books published after April 1 -- about 150 books -- though it continued to offer its older e-books through Amazon.

David Shanks, CEO of Penguin Group (USA) detailed the company's action in a letter sent to agents at the time, saying the books were not available from Amazon as the companies worked to come up with a new pricing agreement in the U.S.

Amazon signed pricing agreements with several other publishers in April -- Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp., and HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corp. -- just as Apple Inc. was about to launch its iPad, a competitor to Amazon's Kindle.

Publishers' relationships with Amazon, which released the Kindle in 2007, have been strained by the company's insistence on charging $9.99 for some best-selling titles.

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Raymond Scott appeared Friday in a court in Newcastle in northeastern England. He is charged with theft, handling stolen goods and removing criminal property. His trial was set for June.

The 53-year-old Scott is accused of taking the rare volume from Durham University in 1998. His arrest came after a man took the edition to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, claiming he had found it in Cuba.

Scott, who arrived at a previous court hearing in a horse-drawn carriage, appeared Friday in military fatigues and an expensive pair of Tiffany sunglasses.

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The new program, available though campus bookstores or the stores' Web sites began as a pilot program in three of its 636 campus bookstores in the fall. It has now been expanded to 25 bookstores.

Some college bookstores that will offer the program include Ohio State University, The University of Maryland, Borough of Manhattan Community College and University of South Carolina.

Barnes & Noble said books will rent for 42.5 percent of their original price, so a $100 book would cost $42.50 to rent for the entire term. Textbooks can be rented at books stores or online -- with orders shipped to a campus bookstore.

College students spend about $667 per year on required course materials, according to the National Association of College Stores.

The effort is operated through the New York company's subsidiary Barnes & Noble College Booksellers LLC. Barnes & Noble bought the Barnes & Noble College Booksellers unit back from its chairman last year in a deal worth $596 million.

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But Marcus is not a regular guy, and "Amazonia" is not a regular dot-com book. As befits a tale told about a bookstore, "Amazonia" is an exquisitely written literary delight that is both personal and ambitious.

Marcus (a former regular book reviewer for Salon) was hired in 1996 by Amazon, brought in on the editorial side to concoct book reviews and otherwise add "content" to the Web site. For several years, he edited Amazon's home page, which means his handiwork was seen by millions, and his choice of what book to feature could have an immediate and significant impact on its sales. (Most book reviewers can only dream of such mighty power.) His early hiring by the company gives him a good look at larger-than-life figures like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, but his editorial role also makes him a management outsider. Like us, Amazon's consumers, he often learned of major events at his own company by reading the newspaper.

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Instead we've been treated to the bizarre spectacle of Amazon.com seeking to turn the dispute from Amazon vs. Amazon into Amazon vs. the lesbians. (Salon.com has a bookselling partnership with Amazon.com rival Barnesandnoble.com.)

The crux of the suit: For 30 years there's been a feminist bookstore in Minneapolis named Amazon Bookstore. Jeff Bezos was probably just starting to read under the covers with a flashlight when the Minneapolis women began selling books as a nonprofit under the name Amazon in 1970. The bookstore, now a for-profit collective, sued Amazon.com earlier this year for trademark infringement. The bookstore claimed to have lost money and staff time dealing with a growing stream of customers and suppliers who had mistaken it for the Web retailer. And, by the way, the store wanted its name back.

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A pleasant looking young woman comes up to me and asks if we have any books on taxidermy.

"Like stuffing road kill?" I joke.

"Actually, no. I've had this squirrel in my freezer for months and I don't know what to do with it." She's serious.

I point her in the direction of the taxidermy books, "Look in Guns and Hunting." She makes a face -- she's not a guns-and-hunting kind of girl.

"So this is serious for you? Like love?" I ask.

"Maybe just a romance, who knows where it will lead?" she says. I mention the Museum of Natural History. "I know, best program in the city. Hard to get into, very competitive," she says.

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A young German woman says, "I'm looking for a book. Veal-ah Kay-zer."

I haven't got a clue. "How do you spell that?"

"Wih, ih, ella, ella ..."

"Oh, Willa Cather."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Worst moment: In the back office P. finds some old signed books he can't return or put on the floor. He says he'll destroy them. I say, "That's murder!" He asks if I want them. They're cheesy science fiction titles. I shake my head, no. He rips them down their spines and throws them in the trash.

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