“Borders wants to sell jazz records to aging boomers . . . Tattered Cover wants to discount best sellers as it expands into the suburban market . . . Amazon.com wants harried buyers to pick up their books at the local chain store . . . . Has the retail world gone mad?” As Michael Booth asks in a Denver Post story, “Isn’t Borders a bookstore? . . . Didn’t Tattered Cover build its vaunted reputation selling full service at full price in the heart of the big city? Doesn’t Amazon think brick-and-mortar stores are so last millennium? ” He points out that, as many are learning this Christmas, “The notion that all books and discs will soon be bought online, or that independent stores must be crushed between e-tailers and chains, ignores how inseparable ‘shopping’ is from ‘lifestyle.'” Booth says many now “dismiss the panic that set in among traditional stores – chains and indies alike – when Internet buying became commonplace a few years ago.” One “anthropologist and marketing cosultant tells him, “If the independents in books and music can hold on and show they know their customer, they’ll be OK.”