I snapped this picture of a quote hanging on the wall of my favorite Seattle bookstore, The Elliott Bay Book Co. It's so beautifully accurate.
After taking the picture, my two girlfriends and I wandered around the store, primarily between the women's studies section and the greek mythology section. We examined various titles, thumbed pages, read passages out loud to each other and debated their meaning. As Jane so elegantly put it, leaving was hard:
“Leaving any bookstore is hard, especially on a
day in August, when the street outside burns and glares, and the books
inside are cool and crisp to the touch; especially on a day in January,
when the wind is blowing, the ice is treacherous, and the books inside
seem to gather together in colorful warmth. It's hard to leave a
bookstore any day of the year, though, because a bookstore is one of the
few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of
the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a
person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.”
2 comments:
you blogged!!
Love that quote. I have a special place for used bookstores. The marked up books are the best. Recently Dad and I were in Chicago and we walked 6 MILES to get to a used bookstore--I planned it that way, really...it was so magical stepping into the store after all the anticipation.
(FYI we took the L back).
Pretty much every trip to Portland has to include a stop at Powell's Books. I have a list of bookstores that I've been meaning to visit. Your post makes me want to take the day off tomorrow and spend it at a bookstore.
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