The moment she entered the store, the smell of books infiltrated her nose and made her brain fuzzy. This is what drug addicts must feel like right before they have their first hit of the day. This is what book addicts felt like the moment they entered the store.
A trail of books read just this month, a trail of books that haven't been read at all and the history of all the books she has read fill her house. People joke that it often literally looks like a trail - like she just dumps a book on the floor the moment she's done with it. She's not sure if she does. Usually the ending of a book makes her feel so sad to leave the book world behind that she doesn't really remember what she does with the book.
But all the trails couldn't prevent her from coming to this store again and picking up more books, more highs, more worlds that she can dive straight into.
My gorgeous new Harry Potter books.
This is a fragment I found in one of my notebooks, clearly written down after I had an amazing trip to a bookstore. Not sure when that was, because all my bookstore trips leave me on a high. Doesn't matter if I buy one book or twenty - seeing all the books in a store make me feel wonderful.
And today it's all about that. It's Books Are My Bag day - a celebration of bookstores in the UK. It's a motivation for people to buy more books, but also to buy more books in stores instead of online.
Because I am a major book lover, and bookstore lover, I support this day fully. (Technically I supported it yesterday when I bought all these Harry Potter books at Hatchards, but today I'm supporting it by this blog post)
As you have seen, there are post on my blog reviewing book stores and on my Twitter you can read all about how I'm constantly buying books, though I really shouldn't.
But what makes bookstores that great? I'm sure it's personal for everyone, but for me it's this : I always find books that I didn't know I needed in my life.
Whenever I buy books online, which was basically my only way to get the books I wanted when I lived in Belgium, I always search specific books. For example: Rebel Belle. I saw that book on Tumblr all the time and knew that I needed it. The cover is perfect, the title is perfect - I loved loved loved it. So I looked it up on Amazon and ordered it.
But then there are other books, like the Harry Potter books (displayed so very beautifully by my roommate for this picture).
Thanks to my creative roomie!
I never really liked them before. There's a vague memory in the back of my head that I was reading them as a young child and I even remember buying book 7 on the day of release - it was a hype and I wanted in. Now I live in London and I see the books in every book store. Every time I walk by them, there's someone (often my roommate) who is talking about how great the books are and how much they meant for them.
I never knew I needed these books, but the beautiful covers present in each book store made me want them. Made me feel like I needed to give them another chance.
This would have never happened with online shopping - I wouldn't even look up Harry Potter books.
Bookstores always open up new worlds to me, worlds that I might have closed myself off from before. And for that, I'll be extremely grateful for the rest of my life. So today, I hope everyone is celebrating these stores and the people working there. They devote their time and energy to make sure that you are exposed to new ideas, new feelings, new characters,...
Thank you bookstores.