Business vs. Love

So, today, I came into contact with books in two very different environments. First, I had to go to school and buy my textbooks for all of my classes. Since I am taking two English classes, several of these purchases were novels. Wonderful, right? Not so much... Book buying at school stresses me out. Books are a big business. For five paperback books, I paid $300. I found no pleasure in handing my schedule to the student worker, waiting in line as she stacked books and placed them on the counter, grabbing my "treasures" (a term I use for MANY novels), and walking to the register. I could not wait to get out of that bookstore!

Now, about half an hour later, I found myself surrounded by more books. This time, though, I was in a small house that operates as a used book store. Imagine if you will, rooms filled with floor to ceiling bookshelves. Each section, whether titled "Poetry," "Ghost Stories," "Literature," or "Travel," brings the possibility of finding something that you have been searching for as a reader. Standing in front of one of the shelves, I could not help but breathe in that old book smell. I am a major dork, I know... and I'm ok with that. This place was all about LOVE. The love of good literature, the love of an untold story, the love of facts and figures weaved perfectly into a new world, the love of escapism, the love of language... This was the kind of bookstore I could stay in forever!!

In a world where EVERYTHING seems to be big business, where EVERYTHING seems to be about profit and the bottom line, it was nice to kneel in front of an aged bookshelf like some kind of treasure hunter. I scoured $1-3 books, bought two, and relaxed in the idea that to some people, BOOKS were still about READERS who loved them, and not about how much they could sell them for.