Barnes and Noble has abandoned the District of Columbia, in Washington DC. The bookseller has proclaimed that they are closing their last retail location this December because of high rent.
The DC region has the largest incomes and overall annual expenditures and people are in love with the written word. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the DC region spends the most both in absolute and proportional terms on reading in the US.
Barnes and Noble used to have a location at Union Station in Washington, DC, which closed several years ago. There was also a Georgetown location (also in DC proper) which closed a few years before that.
Once December rolls around and the last Barnes and Noble bookstore is closed, readers will have to drive for thirty minutes to the suburbs in Virginia and Maryland.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
