Bookworms

Several years ago, when I was in the midst of doing the 'where do I lay my head?' shuffle between Boston and New York City, I spent my weekends down at my Dad's house in New Jersey. I was there often, particularly in those final fall months, when I continued to work at my job in New York, even after I'd said goodbye to my apartment there. Those months were a tumultuous time in my life, as I was dealing with a pile of unknowns and uncertainties. One rainy Sunday I was feeling particularly blue and sorry for myself. Dad popped his head into my bedroom and asked if I felt like taking a drive up to the bookstore. I shrugged my shoulders, sighed. "Come on, I'll buy you a book. My treat." Dad said. I looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah, okay, Dad. That would be nice." Dad waited for me to walk out of my room, put his hand on my shoulder briefly as he followed me downstairs. "Who doesn't love a trip to the bookstore, right? I find things always seem a little less bleak if you've got a new book in your hands."

I was down in New Jersey last weekend, visiting my Dad for a few days. On Saturday morning we drove over to the lone bookstore in our town, a relatively recent business venture that popped up in our town a few years ago. Whenever I talk with my father, and our conversation turns to updates about my hometown, I ask about this bookstore. As you can imagine it thrills me to no end whenever I hear that it is still doing well, that it often appears busy whenever my Dad happens to drive past it.

While we were out running errands, Dad and I popped over with a bag of used books. It's a book swap you see, so for every book you bring in you're either given 10% off the purchase of a new book...or, if you find something on the used shelves, you get an extra 50% off the title's price, which has already been cut in half. It's a good system for the store, for a quiet little town, and perhaps most importantly for my Dad and me. For if there is one thing my father and I have in common it is certainly a love of all things literary. Dad and I easily whiled away an hour together, rummaging among the stacks at this local book swap, eager to use up the many credits we'd just received with our donated bag of books.

Digging through a bookstore can be a bit of a solitary adventure - particularly one filled with used books, which is fine in and of itself. I've shooed away many a lonely moment by taking myself to a bookstore as an adult, often finding safe haven among the winding, twisting stacks. Of course, I am quiet content book shopping with someone as well, for I love that moment when you reconnect with your companion, after separating for a bit, both of you wandering toward the specific shelves that catch your attention (in the case of my father and I, I'm off to fiction, Dad to history and crime thrillers) and comparing whatever treasures you have uncovered among the stacks. Our local store is not very big, so Dad and I couldn't help but circle 'round one another several times in our scoping loop. The shelves are stacked high, crammed full of old and new titles, and one is likely to miss the specific book they are looking for at first glance. For the books are piled where they'll fit, almost but not quite in alphabetical order, and of course, while you're looking for that one author or title in particular you're bound to find ten other books you've had in the back of your mind to read one day. Which may or may not be how you end up walking back to your car with a stack like this in your hands:


Grin included. Obviously.