For a while it was a page-turner. First, the Reading Room was set to close in March 2008 to make room for some hip-upscale-whatever clothing store. Then it … didn’t close. When the clothing store didn’t materialize, The Reading Room — the city’s only independent bookstore that sells new books — actual literature, not Michael Crichton airport doorstops — just quietly swam along in a perpetual reprieve, hosting authors and moving titles.

That reprieve ends in less than a month. An official at the MGM Mirage confirms that The Reading Room closes July 17. (Store manager Ana Viditchi did not return phone calls). So, stock up now on literature sold at what is perhaps one of the world’s unlikeliest book stores — one hand-picked by a renaissance casino mogul who holds a degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Glenn Schaeffer.

Which makes for another twist of the plot: When The Reading Room was originally slated to shutter in 2008, former Mandalay Resort Group executive Glenn Schaeffer was at the helm of the Fontainebleau, where he’d hinted that The Reading Room might find a new home. But now that Schaeffer’s resigned from Fontainebleau, the prospects of a happy ending to this particular story are dim.

UPDATE: According to Scott Voeller, vice president of marketing for Mandalay Bay, a Yogurt In outlet will replace the Reading Room. As for the book store workers, who are MGM Mirage employees, he writes in an e-mail, “Our Human Resources team is working diligently to find employment within the MGM MIRAGE family for all Reading Room employees who wish to remain with the company.”