Membership-based store chain Costco has announced that they are backing out of carrying books as a year-round item, the New York Times reports. Those big tables filled with stacks of best-sellers and deluxe and kid-friendly titles will instead just be dragged out for the last third of the year, for the holiday shopping season While this does make understandable sense from a business perspective – those tables required a lot more maintenance than a pallet full of cartoons full of bags full of croutons – it is going to be sad for the Peanuts book buyer. Costco often carried books or boxed sets that were either created for them exclusively or created for the membership store market with Costco’s purchases being a major incentive for production.
Might we still see something special for Christmas? Sure, that was actually the most common time for there to be new Peanuts product there. But we would also see things like the summer release of the Game Day boxed set of sports-themed strip collections, and those will presumably be falling by the wayside. While I can certainly afford to buy a few fewer Peanuts books in the years to come, I shan’t be happy about it.
