It’s been announced today that McNally Robin­son is clos­ing two of its stores and have entered bank­ruptcy pro­tec­tion for restructuring.

For those not in Win­nipeg, it’s worth men­tion­ing that the inde­pen­dent book­seller is a local suc­cess story, hav­ing started here in 1981 and grown to have stores not only in Win­nipeg, but also in Saska­toon, Toronto, and New York as well as online. Many Win­nipeg­gers have a “feel-good” sense about sup­port­ing this local option for their book pur­chases, and it’s a pop­u­lar spot for book launches as well. Most loca­tions also fea­ture a (non-Starbucks) café/restaurant of some sort, the Prairie Ink Café. To be clear, I like McNally Robin­son as a book­store. The loca­tions I’ve been in are all large with a good selec­tion of titles and spe­cial pro­mo­tion for local authors.