I stopped at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet today to check out what they had this week. I love browsing the book section because they frequently have literary classics in hardbound editions and I get them for my library. One other thing they always seem to have is an overabundance of Christian books… Max Lucado, Billy Graham, Lee Strobel, and a lot of other names I’ve never heard. The Ollie’s I went to today had over 6 rows of "Inspirational" books, almost 100% of them were some sort of Christian denomination (as a side note, I found it humorous that there was a Battlestar Galactica book that had been "mis-filed" among them).
The abundance of Christian books at a bargain outlet got me wondering. Are the proprietors of Ollie’s religious folks? Are Christian books notoriously hard to sell and wind up in the bargain bin because of it? Are Christian bookstores going out of business because they can’t compete with the big chains like Borders and Barnes and Noble? I don’t know the answer, but the situation is the same at both Ollie’s stores in my area.
It turned out for the best because I picked up a Max Lucado book for 99 cents.
It’s a perfect gag gift for Craig.