My little secret is my love affair with books. I cannot help myself... I adore them! I love their scent as well as the feel of their pages. Bookshops are one of my favorite haunts. Barnes and Nobles is wonderful, but the shops I truly adore are the ones found between a bakery and a fishing tackle shop...I am certain you have been there...you walk through the door only to find yourself surrounded by shelves containing the latest and greatest mingled amongst stacks of really ancient books... obscure ones! Those are the shops I fancy the most for I adore old books.
The truth is... at times I simply search out an old run down shop so I can lose myself within the lovely smell and crowded aisles. There is usually a wonderful Proprietor hiding behind a pile of books (barely visible to the average shopper) but if one knows where to look, a wealth of knowledge can be gained during a simple chat... add that the discount achieved after purchasing half the store and a gal can't go wrong:)
I find comfort in books. I love holding in my hands a piece of history...knowing as I flip through the pages someone else once did that very thing...100 years ago, somewhere, someone received the gift of a book and was thrilled. The book was cherished and read time and time again.
In a day and age of eBooks and television, video games and picture phones...I find a small portion of peace in knowing that one thing has withstood time...as I sit holding a book in my hands, reading the pages that generations before me have read... I find great pleasure in the sheer basicness of the act...
Perhaps the next time you pass a shop piled with stacks of books, you will take a gander inside and lose yourself amongst the shelves...even if you do not make a purchase or do not particularly like books as a general rule... take a brief moment from the hustle of the 21st century and escape into a world that many have forgotten...you will not regret it... you may even discover that you, too, find enjoyment in the simplest of things:)
