Book retailer Borders Group Inc., which is shuttering hundreds of stores in a bid to stay alive, is seeking bankruptcy court approval to hand out more than $8 million in executive bonuses, including nearly $1.7 million to President Mike Edwards.

Papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan outline a proposed pay enhancement program keyed to the company  reorganizing under Chapter 11 or selling itself as a going concern.

Edwards is president and chief executive of Borders Inc., the principal unit of Borders Group.

For Borders’ five highest-level executives, the bonuses mean extra pay from 90 percent to 150 percent of their base salaries.

Seventeen top executives are covered by the largest program, which could add as much as $7.1 million to the pay packets of leaders who stick with the company in bankruptcy.

A second $1.2 million bonus program covers 25 “director-level” managers “critical to the debtors’ reorganization and to ongoing business,” court papers say.

Saddled with leases on big stores, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based book retailer has said it will try to get out of bankruptcy by August or September.