Feeding the Monster...

I knew it, from the minute that I walked through the door, that I wasn't going to regret this for a moment. My favorite used bookstore is relocating, which is a bummer for a couple of reasons. One, the downtown location is (I refuse to use the past tense til the doors close permanently) just a few blocks from my house. Second, I buy nearly all my books there; it's comforting to know I can get my books for half the price of other bookstores. Third, the store has been a staple of downtown Provo for a couple of decades, the store itself a claustrophobic nightmare, with narrow lanes of bookshelves filled with countless texts. But the best part of the store was its smell.

I must confess. I love the smell of books: new, old, slightly used, water damaged. I find in the aroma as story as compelling and thought provoking as the text itself. And it seems each book has a different flavor, as if the authors chose the specific glue used in the binding. If you don't believe me, try it. Go to your desk, bookshelf, local library, wherever the case maybe. Crack open a book. Take a whiff. Then again, you might not find the same pleasure I do. I just humbly ask that you do not judge me and the countless others who take a moment, upon entering an archive of books, to take a deep breath.

For the record, I bought three books: a Harvard Classics edition of Don Quixote, an anthology of poetry entitled Tennyson to Whitman, and an anthology circa 1961 of William Faulkner. Closing price: $ 3.18.