As I mentioned the other day in the "What Are You Reading?" thread, the World's Biggest Bookstore (which may or may not have been an accurate name) closed recently.
To give you an idea of the size, before it was a bookstore, it was a bowling alley.
Here's where I spent many a Sunday afternoon:
Pretty much everything in that photo that's behind the "New & Hot" sign was their science fiction and fantasy section. It was bigger than some entire bookstores I've been in. Graphic novels and manga occupied another set of shelves that's not quite visible in that photo, just behind the purple banner in the background.
Over the last month or so that it was open, everything in the store was 50% off, except for books that had already been on sale, which were 75% off. Here's my haul from that last month (apologies for the blurriness - my hands were a bit shaky yesterday when I took this, and I've shelved the books since taking this photo, so I can't retake it):
Those cost me about $600 or so. Many of them were books I'd previously picked up, considered buying and ultimately decided against, mostly because I felt I had already spent enough money that day. But at 50% off (or more), there was no such thing as "spent enough money."
An author friend of mine posted the following photo on Facebook yesterday, of the current state of the store:
*sigh*