Monday, July 5, 2010

Impulses

I had the day off of work today. Instead of sitting on my butt being lazy I decided to take the opportunity to do a little city exploring. On my typical bus route I always pass by this used book store and have been meaning to go in for weeks. With a whole, sunny day ahead of me I figured it was the perfect time to venture in.

Even before walking into Bookleggers, I perused the "on sale" book carts outside. With the sun on my back, I glanced through a vast array of titles and authors. Some I recognized and others I'd never heard it. It's always interesting to me to see what people choose to write about and where stories seem to occur.


After making a selection, I wandered inside. Immediately I was hit with the familiar smell of old books. It's a little bit of a strange smell, an acquired taste if you will, but there's something comforting in it. It's the smell of knowing you can lost in a story, become suddenly and without warning transported to anywhere else and getting fully invested in the lives of the characters. It's like walking into your grandma's house or the house of an old friend, kind of enveloping you in a bear hug and welcoming you in. With that, I wandered around the isles checking out what Bookleggers had to offer.

As I sorted through the fiction section I began to think about what types of books I'm generally pulled to and what my book impulses are. With so many titles gracing the shelves, it's an almost overwhelming experience to figure out what's for you. Typically I gravitate towards anything to do with animals. I am a serious animal lover and because of that, anything with an animal on the cover or in the title, I will at least check out because I impulsively lean towards them. That said, I left the store with two books about dogs- The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst and Dog Years by Mark Doty. One if fiction and one is a memoir. They sound like amazing stories to get lost in so I will keep you posted.


3 comments:

  1. The girl in the picture looks like Gina sleeping! Can't wait to hear your reviews of these two books.

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  2. I also really love perusing through old book stores. Nice post.

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  3. It does look like Gina! that's funny.

    Thanks John! Have you been to any around here that you really like?

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