As most of you know by now, Cody's Books -- famous for its unyielding love by the literati, being fire-bombed in the 1980s for displaying Salman Rushdie's in its window, and for selling glued paper with printed text -- is done. Is this yet another echo of print publishing's death rattle? Who's to say. Local independent bookstores in the Bay Area, we're told, are doing well overall. But if you plan on being a large bookstore with other chains, you had best plan on selling double-glazed donuts and cream cheese-filled soft pretzels, a la Border's Book, or you're doomed.

Anyway, Cody's final store on Shattuck Avenue has, at last, shut its doors. What's to become of it? We cares. Because it can't be any more inane than what will occupy its former San Francisco location on Stockton Street: a Ferrari store. And, no, it won't sell their famous, Italian-made sports cars. Instead they plan on hawking "the emotion of the Ferrari world," which we can only assume means size-small condoms and a bevy of Rogaine products. Not since Planet Hollywood will a store see so little foot traffic.

(OK, we totally want a Ferrari Segway, but still: the store won't last. Or will it?)

Image: Steve Rhodes

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