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Bookish thoughts
Jan. 26th, 2007 09:18 amToday I am mostly feeling icky and ill. Girls, you'll know why :-(( Worse than normal, a day early and I'm already wondering how long I'll last at work. Grrr.
But I have Things that must be done today.
I was discussing shopping with colleagues (bear with me here). New Girl loves shopping and regards Oxford Circus shopping district as shopping heaven. The entire department thinks me weird for viewing Foyles in London or Picadilly Waterstones as heaven. Seven floors of books somehow doesn't cut it with them. It's just that there's something amazing about being surrounded by books. They smell bookish and they sort of whisper to you, tempting you with promises of adventure, romance and excitement or new things to know. You know that if you take a couple home with you, they're going to provide you with an amazing afternoon where you get to be somewhere else, absorbed by someone else's life and forgetting everything around you. If it's a proper reading session, you'll see and feel everything you're reading and stop noticing that it's words on the page: the book becomes real around you.
It's something that a lot of people don't really get and I sometimes wonder why. Are they unwilling to let go enough to allow that to happen? Have they just never read the right book for them? Are they afraid to escape that far into a book so they keep something back from the experience?
I suppose it's as hard for some people to understand why I love books so much as it is for me to understand how people don't love reading.
But I have Things that must be done today.
I was discussing shopping with colleagues (bear with me here). New Girl loves shopping and regards Oxford Circus shopping district as shopping heaven. The entire department thinks me weird for viewing Foyles in London or Picadilly Waterstones as heaven. Seven floors of books somehow doesn't cut it with them. It's just that there's something amazing about being surrounded by books. They smell bookish and they sort of whisper to you, tempting you with promises of adventure, romance and excitement or new things to know. You know that if you take a couple home with you, they're going to provide you with an amazing afternoon where you get to be somewhere else, absorbed by someone else's life and forgetting everything around you. If it's a proper reading session, you'll see and feel everything you're reading and stop noticing that it's words on the page: the book becomes real around you.
It's something that a lot of people don't really get and I sometimes wonder why. Are they unwilling to let go enough to allow that to happen? Have they just never read the right book for them? Are they afraid to escape that far into a book so they keep something back from the experience?
I suppose it's as hard for some people to understand why I love books so much as it is for me to understand how people don't love reading.
