End of a chapter or two

One of the luxuries of being out of the journalism game is I don't have to keep up with the news every minute, so it came as a surprise today to learn of the death of Arthur C. Clarke 12 days ago. His 2001: A Space Odyssey series of books (he wrote four) are classics of their kind and show how fantastic sci fi can be even when it is rooted in science, rather than fantasy. In other book news, I popped down to Arai Bookshop, which is perfectly placed between Tennodai tube station and Mister Doughnut (Mister Doughnut is a close personal friend of mine). It was the last day of business for the shop before it undergoes conversion into a fast-food outlet. The owner, Toshiko Arai, is a student of mine. She took over the place from her father who died three years ago. Squeezed out by competition from the internet, book superstores and declining numbers of avid readers, the shop has more value as a piece of real estate than as a general bookshop. If it were me, I'd fight tooth and nail to keep it alive, but I suspect the passion for the shop died with the father. While I was there, I picked up some bargains, some DVDs of classic movies  - To Kill a Mockingbird, The Third Man, The Maltese Falcon, The Great Dictator and Casablanca. Is it fitting or just sad that it was DVDs and not books that were my last transaction with the bookshop?