Maxine Hong Kingston (left) was among those who gathered at Berkeley's famed independent bookstore, Cody's, to commemorate its 50th anniversary and its closing. But the Bay Area bookblog Dibs! has a contrarian take on the shutdown, proposing that "Cody's killed Cody's" by overextending its reach in a competitive market. And while mourners heaped abuse on Amazon and B&N for smothering independent booksellers, the Dibs! correspondent noted a touch of irony:

"Behind the curtain that served as the speakers' backdrop, a large white sheet cake emblazoned with the bookstore's name awaited the ceremony's end. It hadn't been unpacked from its plastic box yet. Umm... did we mention chain stores? As its sticker revealed, the cake came from Safeway."