Friday, November 13, 2009

The Smell of Print

So I'm out of every conceivable thing here at the house except for the necessaries (cat/dog food and toilet tissue) and I really should have gone to Wal-Mart after school today. I just could NOT face it. Just the thought of having to push a buggy up and down the aisles made me shudder. So I didn't.

Instead, I went to what passes for a bookstore here in town and meandered up and down the aisles. I went in there with a specific book in mind. I hardly ever go in otherwise. I get almost everything I want bookwise from Amazon because I frequently get frothing mad at our local store for not having what I need/want when I need/want it. Today, however, was different. All I really found myself wanting was to be surrounded by the soothing presence of books.

Ever since I was a tiny child, the presence of books has been a comfort to me. I remember my mother going into the mall to do major shopping in the large chain stores and taking me to what was then Bookland. She'd drop me off with firm orders not to leave the store, and I'd happily spend hours sometimes browsing and reading while she did whatever had brought her to the mall in the first place. I was seldom done when she returned.

Libraries are the same kind of refuge. During my undergraduate days, I would often just go up to the stack tiers and hunt very old magazines to see what things looked like then even if I didn't have a research project going for the delight of discovery and the peaceful feeling of all that collected "knowing" surrounding me. Of course, sometimes the stacks weren't the world's safest or most peaceful place, but probably the less said about the freaks the better....

There's really nothing like a book, nothing like the weight of it in the hand, the delightful ruffle of the pages under the fingertips. Even though I love my Kindle and love reading with it very much, I think if all the books were gone from the world and all we had left were e-texts, something very precious would be gone. I would miss the physical delight of opening a cover, rustling those leaves. Some works just demand being held in my hands, it seems.

I bought too much today as I always do. I can no more turn away an interesting-looking book than I can a pitiful-looking animal or a needy student. They all call out to my basic nature, I suppose. I have a shelf now in my sun room full of "to read" books. I have big plans to plow through some of them tomorrow including my new one. What a pleasant thing to have to look forward to for a weekend!

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