The weekend papers were full of more twists and turns to the Chapters story. Saturday morning the National Post led with a story stating: "Grave financial problems at Chapters Inc. could lead to the collapse of the Canadian publishing industry..." Although the huge bookstore chain is responsible for selling 40 to 50 per cent of all books in Canada, it's been slow to pay publishers. The report cited the publisher Harper Collins, which was said to be owed $11 million from shipments dating back more than a year.

By Saturday night, Harper Collins and Chapters were denying the story on CBC-TV. But this doesn't entirely erase the questions about Chapters' dominance in the Canadain publishing industry from the retail side, nor its wholesale subsidiary Pegasus, which pretty much runs things on the distribution end.

Until lately, Canadian publishers have been reluctant to complain too loudly about Chapters, because this dominant chain has actually been selling a lot of Canadian books.

But the novelty of their 231 small outlets and the appeal of 71 larger luxury stores may be wearing off with the book-buying public. In the past few months Chapters has been returning to publishers unsold books.

I ventured into Chapters on Bloor St. in downtown Toronto Sunday night to see what was selling. Not much, it seems. Granted, it's summer and a lot of people are away. But there were no lineups at the main cash. In the music room downstairs, I was the only browser; there were two young university students using the comfy chairs to do some homework. On the upper two floors it looked like there were more browsers flopped in chairs reading books, than active customers walking through the aisles. The books on display at tables were a lacklustre offering, with the look of stuff management had over-ordered.

It's a big change from the way the store looked a year ago, but the most shocking renovation is the removal of the main magazine rack. The rack has been hustled from its dominant 1st floor entrance, moved up to the 2nd floor. The mag racks have been harshly lit and stripped of seating comforts, in a brazen attempt to discourage the kind of browsing for which Chapters was once famous.