I've read such great books lately and have failed to even review them -- I'm lazy. I'm lazy. My work life drains me of my preferred energies.
But I just started what is turning out to be a real excellent read -- The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides. I so love this author.
Anyhoo -- a passage near the beginning of the book made me think of one of my own literary proclivities. The protagonist Madeleine Hanna is obsessed with books and literature [I love her already]! She comes from an affluent book-loving family, and I dug the following description:
Even as a girl in Prettybrook, Madeleine wandered into the library, with its shelves of books rising higher than she could reach -- newly purchased volumes such as Love Story or Myra Breckinridge that exuded a faintly forbidden air, as well as venerable leather-bound editions of Fielding, Thackeray, and Dickens -- and the magisterial presence of all those potentially readable words stopped her in her tracks. She could scan book spines for as long as an hour.
So could I.
That is what I mean to say with this blog tonight. So could I.
In fact, I do it all the time -- I wander in the bookstore. I am WRITING this blog from the bookstore. I find the meandering among book spines not only utterly fascinating, but very relaxing.
I wonder if I'm alone in this. In my opinion, the only thing better than wandering among books is sitting down with one and reading it.
*****
3 comments:
Only an hour? I can go for longer than that! In fact, my head is permanently tilted to the side from spending so much time reading book spines in bookstores ;)
I read your blog! Actually I like the short posts - they make me think or laugh or both. And as for bookshop meandering, well I just feel better the moment I walk in, like coming to a place I recognise and am at home in. Of course the best ones have coffee shops so you can scan spines and then sit and read straightaway.
Sometimes I wonder if I like browsing through books better than reading them cover to cover. Maybe I'll invent a new form of reading.
Post a Comment