Bibliophilia

    Growing up, my house looked kind of like a bookstore. My parents are avid readers, and it showed.  A bookshelf was my most loved piece of “big girl” furniture – even if I did have to share it with my sister. I filled it with my first chapter books, Baby Sitters Club, and even books I borrowed from my parents’ “library” that I would insist on trying to read even though they were way above my limited comprehension. Perusing my parents’ shelves started my life-long addiction to bookstores and libraries.

    Thirteen years later. Anybody who looks in the bag I carry everyday, goes shopping with me, or walks into my apartment notices: I spend way too much money on books. My first bookshelf has been replaced by the biggest I can find for the least amount of money. I feel more comfortable in bookstores than I do in any other public place. There’s no social awkwardness, no special etiquette. Every bookstore or library has a different vibe, but they all are benevolent purveyors of my drug of choice.

    I need to confess something. I like Borders. There. I said it. I’m sure I’m not the only one (especially among English majors) who have been taught to disdain the corporate chain bookstore. But Borders is the place I go when I need something specific. Big, shiny, diverse, authoritative, it has that “new book smell” and all those cheerful baristas to make me coffee as I browse. The café provides me a place to read, and even better, a place to watch people read. Parents reading to their kids, teens reading Harry Potter, and my personal favorite, the weekly knitting groups paging through books of patterns. They bring to mind rival knitting gangs. At Borders I can read, drink cofeee, and if I’m careful not to flash the wrong yarn color, even knit.

    Now I’m not a book snob. In fact, I prefer used books. I like knowing that something I’m reading has been read by someone else, that it has a history. I still go back to the Old Bookseller in Rice Lake when I’m visiting my parents. It’s a typical small-town used bookstore – tiny, with one lady running the whole operation. They sell old Rice Lake postcards and bookmarks (the kind that are supposed to cure your dog-earing, but never worked for me).