This *&^%ing Sucks

Sorry for the vulgarities, but I just found out from both Suzy Staubach at the University of Connecticut Bookstore and from Publishers Weekly that the Brown University Bookstore is laying off scads of employees, including Peter Sevenair, the senior buyer who has been there for 31 years and is one of the most respected bookstore people in the business.

Rumor has it that the store will essentially be run by one part-time employee—good luck with that!

Oh, and in a further move of cost-cutting genius, the store will no longer carry books, but instead will specialize in selling quirky t-shirts with slogans about how “green Brown is” and about how there is no “Brown-style offense” in basketball, because, well, unlike Princeton, Brown isn’t an “athlete’s” school. In addition to t-shirts, iPads, and bumper stickers, they plan on selling bobbleheads of various administrators¹.

¹ This rumor is unsubstantiated.