I was at the Farmer's market today, and on the way from my parked car, I saw a used bookstore I had never seen before. Turns out it has been there for 15 years, but I usually park the other way, and never crossed its path.
Bookstores and libraries have been special places for me for a long time. I have fond memories of a mobile library in front of my elementary school, before the local library in our new development suburb had a building. I remember the local library with endless collections of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Asterix and Tintin and how to be a spy book and sign language. I remember a larger library that had rare books of plays that we tried to act out in a puppet theatre made from refrigerator box. It was the first place I read a book that I regretted that there were no ratings for books. There were movies by then, and you could be sure of what you were getting, but if there was sexual aggression in the book, there was no warning on the back cover, and once you read it, you couldn't unread it. Even the church I went to had a small library, so that in all my growing up years, the only bookstore I remember being in was a Christian bookstore, and then the University bookstore for textbooks.
The first bookstore I remember being in was near Trinity Western University in BC. My ex-boyfriend and I found nothing more fun than browsing through the aged pages of a local bookstore in the sunshine. When I travelled to Europe, the draw for English books was so strong that people gave word of mouth instructions on how instructions on how to find the Shakespeare multi-level bookstore on Unter den Linden in Berlin.
My favourite bookstore in the West Island of Montreal was just one major street away, and better than the bookstores that were downtown. That didn't stop me from visiting it when I went by, but it gave me such grief when it closed down that I don't think I have visited the other downtown haunts in case they too have closed.
I once knew the son of a wealthy man who inherited a bookstore as his first business venture. I don't know that it was ever sold as a business, but I know the son did other things in IT instead. It always reminded me of a church pastor that deserved to have a bookstore. He loved books more than anyone I have ever met. His house was packed with books. They were stacked up like temporary walls in the living room, around furniture. His wife was a saint in her tolerance of his habits. He was not a hoarder in other ways, but with books, he had as close to a problem as anyone. He would buy them bulk. Once it was a truckload. But he read the books he received. Underlined passages in them. Was inspired by them. Quoted them in sermons. Lent them to friends. He told a story that he would read books on open quiet highways while he drove with his knees, until the day that he hit a piece of lumber on the road, and realized his folly before worse happened. I wish I could rent out a space for this man's personal library, because I know him well enough that it would be a lending library to all.
Even my favourite movie is a romantic comedy set in a New York bookstore. It was adapted from a film set in Budapest that is called Shop Around the Corner. Although it is a Jimmy Stewart black and white film that I have a soft spot for, I prefer the movie that it inspired called You've Got Mail.
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