The Love of Books

The Love of Books

"So many books, yet so little time." "Books. Cats. Life is Good." "There's no such thing... As too many books..." "Biblioholism- books, of books: the habitiual longing to purchase, read, store, admire, and consume books in excess."
I love books. I enjoy reading them of course, but there is a difference in loving books and loving to read them. I happen to love books. The way the pages rustle when you pick up a paperback, the smooth feel of an embossed hardback. The smudges and yellow spots in old books that make them look loved and well-used. Or the way the spine crackles when you open up a new book, and you know you are the first to read it. When old books open up in your hands to the most dramatic or romantic chapter, and you know that many other people have loved this book too. The gilt lined pages of an antique leatherbound book that glitters when you turn it. I love the smell of paper and ink in libraries, or the old musty and woody smell of a curious little bookshop on a corner street.
Books are amazing things, they spread ideas and emotions, facts and fantasy. The earliest civilizations tried to communicate these things through pictographs, and in a way the pictures spoke so much more than simple words ever can. We have progressed from pictographs to tablets, tablets to scrolls, scrolls to books, there have even been bizarre ways of communicating with knots in colored strings. Human beings innately have a desire to share their insights, and the knowledge that information needs to be spread.
I have a favorite bookshop too, the kind you read about only in stories. It goes by the quaint name of Caveat's Antique and Rare Books, and resides in Bloomington. You walk in and are immediately struck by the paper, ancient yellowed pieces intermingled with newer peices cover every wall, doorframe, and bookshelf. Upon closer examination you find that these papers are all quotes by famous people and thoughtful cartoons cut from newspapers. This place smells of musty paper and pipe smoke and knowledge. A single old man always sits in the cubby-hole to the right of the entrance, reading the news and fiddling with a pipe, he is the perfect picture of the secretive librarian that turns out to have the answers to everything. If you walk straght ahead there are five little rooms with a different subject contained in each one on old leaning shelves, in cardboard boxes, and neat stacks, each room also contains an old uncomfortable office chair. If you were to go left instead of ahead upon entering, you would be in a long aisle full of boxes and poetry books, and the best part of all, there is a library ladder. You know the type, they have wheels on the bottom and a track along the top of the shelf. I could stay in this place forever, but I know I must leave so as not to wear out the charm.

In closing, if you have a favorite book or bookshop, I want to hear about it! Leave me a comment please!

Korin