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'Something to which you have a deep connection'

27 March 2006

'To get people to buy them, books need to have physical properties that make them compelling as furniture. Aside from that, it's about enthusing emotion. Some people really build a bond with a book and they can't let it go, and one of the things we're really working on is trying to connect with people and to say that books are an emotional product - not only do they have an ability to educate and entertain, to enlighten and enrich a life. For me, Fermat's Enigma is a book that really means something to me and I can only imagine lending it to someone if I could be sure they'd return it, because I keep going back to it. That's the key, in a nutshell - books have to be a product infused with permanency. We've got to get back to the experiential side, where it's not the throwaway supermarket item you don't really care about but something you have a deep connection to.'

Rick Vanzura, President of Borders Group International, talking to Liz Thomson in Publishing News