Bookstores have always been like a second home to me, especially the used ones with dusty books that lingered on someone else’s bookshelf for long periods of time, before they decided it was time to get rid of them.
I was born with a poor sense of smell but there are two things I can pick up the strongest, and most vivid whiffs of, and I love them both: coffee and old, dusty books. Apps, computers, and websites can never even begin to replace the tactile experience of walking into a used bookstore, holding a book in my hands, inhaling the musky, old book smell I love so much, and flipping the pages, while examining every intricate detail. Plus, no matter what’s going on in my life I always get a natural high out of walking into an old school bookstore and being surrounded by the pictures and words that someone spent hours creating/thinking of, and the pages that a team of editing and publishing professionals carefully constructed, so that I can hold the finished product in my hands.
I’ve never been all that religious but I’ve always considered the feeling of walking inside a bookstore a spiritual experience. Every employee, every customer, and every book lingering on the shelf celebrates the sensation of finding inner contentment, via solitary thought.
One of my favourite used bookstores, that no longer exists created a constant opprotunity to converse with a bright, old man, who ran the store with his wife. The owner and his wife also took care of a stray cat, that spent most of its day sleeping, and a timid dog, that’s afraid of sudden movements. Bringing a book to the counter wasn’t just about paying with cash, credit, or debit it also inspired interaction with the store’s owner, who seemed to know random facts about literally every book he sold. Purchasing books lead to everything from jokes about the themes of Samuel Beckett’s plays and fiction, to random facts about contemporary and non-contemporary playwrights, that never came up in the English Lit lectures I attended in school, because of their edginess.
Even though my favourite used bookstore no longer exists I still love walking into a used bookstore, and being surrounded by thinkers, creators, and bookstore employees that I often see fragments of myself in. When I step inside a used bookstores I feel extremely convinced that the internet, and smartphones, and computers aren’t interfering with the one thing I don’t ever want to change: the tactile experience of holding a book in my hands.
Over the years I’ve watched so many bookstores I’ve spent hours in close down, and every time one of them closes down I feel mild sorrow, not just for the death of a familiar experience, but for the future of used bookstores overall. I’m a major advocate for used bookstores, and doing whatever we can to help them succeed because no other business model can replace the positive, communal experience of selling and buying used books.
