Two Massachusetts Bookstores Close, One by Fire…

From Publishers Weekly:
After putting 29-year-old Globe Corner Bookstore up for sale last November because of a health issue, president Patrick Carrier announced today that the travel book and map store in Harvard Square Cambridge will close by the end of June. When Globe Corner opened in downtown Boston in 1982, it was one of the first travel bookstores in the U.S. It has been in Harvard Square for the past 24 years.

“Although we did receive several offers, none met our requirements for selling the business,” says Carrier, who plans to continue to sell online through the store’s website. In addition, Carrier will continue to solicit offers for the company’s assets, including its Web presence and databases and rights to the Globe Corner brand.

Across the state in Worcester, MA one of the area’s oldest used and antiquarian bookstores was forced to close over the Memorial Day weekend. Forty-six year-old Ben Franklin Bookstore, which had been slated to close at the end of the summer, was destroyed in a fire on Friday night. Although no one was harmed in the blaze, the inventory was destroyed and both bookstore cats died.