Used Books

One day last week I left work and arrived at the train with about twenty minutes to spare. Not wanting to hang around a train platform, I decided to spend a few minutes in a bookshop a stone's throw away from the platform.

If I were ever going to write a screenplay, I would center it around this bookshop. I am not a fan of used books. Quite the opposite actually. Whenever I buy a book I go out of my way to find the prettiest, newest copy of the book that I can. But this place was enchanting.

Maybe I have spent too much time with Heather W. When we were in England together, she would steadfastly find and spend long minutes in used bookstores (I'm sure that there is a better way to put that..Sorry Mrs. Warning, I am broadcasting my ignorance). I never really got it and jokingly told Heather that she had an obsession with old books. She just smiled and shrugged. Now I get it.

When I walked in I was awed by the sheer size of the building. Shelf after shelf of books in every subject imaginable from children's books to politics in India. I wandered like a child lost in a crowd. I was looking for something to catch me but what was really grabbing me was the entire environment. I loved being able to ramble and find any subject I wanted. I loved the homey feel of the old bookshelves. Most of all, as odd as this sounds, I loved the smell of the place. I reminded me of the smell of the Drama Group (a theatre I grew up in)- part sawdust, part individual perfumes, part ancient. I can't truly describe it but I aquaint it with home, safety, and creation.

In my last couple minutes I was in the children section and one book caught my eye: Jacob Have I Loved. It was one of those books that I always said that I'd read someday but never did. So I bought it and tried not to look at the battered cover on the train ride home.

I'll save my newfound love for that book later since this post is already ridiculously long. Suffice it to say that answers come in unexpected places. Sometimes we learn them from places and from people that we never anticipated. Powell's bookshop and Heather W, Thanks for the lesson.