It Borders on Civility

It’s hard to tell if Borders is a store to hang out in or a hangout with stuff to buy.

“The whole idea behind the store was to make it as much like reading in your home as we can,” says Larry Miller, the community relations director for Borders’ Westwood store.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based outfit invaded Southern California last October, taking up a block-long span of Westwood Boulevard (as well as equally large chunks of Torrance and Mission Viejo, with two more stores on the way in West Hollywood and Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade).

We’re talking two floors of books--more than 100,000 titles--plus an entire room devoted to magazines and newspapers from around the world.

There are also departments for music, videos, computer games and new media, most of which can be listened to, watched or played with right there in the store.

There’s a room full of toys for the kids, an espresso bar for the adults, entertainment on the weekends and an open-mike night Wednesdays.

“It’s a very relaxed atmosphere,” Miller says. “We don’t want to sell you a book. We want you to feel like buying one.”

To that end, Borders’ mellow marketing plan allows customers to take books and magazines to the cafe as well as coffee and snacks to the stacks. With free parking, plenty to do and no pressure to buy, the store has evolved into a hybrid community hangout/mall/slackeria.

“There’s such a nice selection of reading materials here, so we come to get caught up,” says screenwriter Garth Pappas, sitting with his wife, Kelly, upstairs in the Borders cafe, where a band plays acoustic background music.

He’s scouring a copy of Newsweek he brought up from the periodical room, while she’s plowing through European editions of Harper’s Bazaar.

“We’ve been here about an hour,” he says. “We already read all the trades.”

Over in the rotunda, students from nearby UCLA pore over stacks of books--their own and the store’s--helping themselves to the dictionaries and thesauruses Borders leaves on the tables.

“I like the fact that you can read all the books and nobody’s going to bother you to put them away,” says UCLA math major Ian Runciman, lounging in a cushiony chair.

Runciman and some friends stopped by on their way to a movie. They thought they’d stay only a minute. Half an hour later, they’re still here.

Even a celebrity or two gets caught up whiling away the hours here. Upstairs in the music shop, Burt Reynolds is cruising the aisles with a stack of CDs by everyone from Chet Baker to k.d. lang. “It seems like I’ve been here for two years,” says the actor, trying to be somewhat incognito. “I’m the fastest shopper in the world except in art galleries and bookstores.”

While many people work the entire store, others have a favorite place staked out. Jack Slotnik, a commodities and futures broker, has made himself comfortable near the intersection of the science and business books.

“It’s a good place to spend a Friday night,” he says. “If you go to the library, you have to settle for books that are usually 10, 15, 20 years old.”

Slotnik is boning up on “The Nonprofit Management Handbook,” a pristine $105 item he’ll read in the store. He’s also consulting books on plate tectonics to check out his theory that earthquakes are not caused by the movements of the plates, but the internal mechanisms in the Earth.

“Everything’s right here,” he says, waving his arms expansively. “It’s like a candy store--if you like to read.”

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Where: 1360 Westwood Blvd., Westwood. Also 3700 Torrance Blvd., Torrance, and 25222 El Paseo, Mission Viejo.

When: 9 a.m.-11 p.m., Mon.-Thurs.; 9 a.m.-midnight, Fri.-Sat.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. Two hours free parking without validation, four hours with validation.

Cost: Cappuccino, $2. Sandwiches, $3.95-$4.95.

Entertainment: Music 9 p.m. on most Fridays and Saturdays. Open mike night 7:30 Wednesdays. Stories for children at 11 a.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. (Check for different schedules at Torrance and Mission Viejo.)