Second-hand Bookshops

             I don’t know about you, but one of the small joys in life that gives a disproportionate amount of pleasure is finding a book that is pure gold, by an author I’ve not read before. In fact, one of my favourite pastimes is shuffling around second-hand bookshops leafing through dusty tomes that were published before I was born. These days, you can also flick through pages on the internet to do the same thing, but I still love the feel of paper beneath my fingers.

             In these bookshops you find little gems, mysteries that were published in the 1930s that use language you’d never use yourself these days, but still take hold of your imagination, still make you turn the page to find out what happens next. And in these bookshops you also come across old books from your childhood – the stories you read when you first began to get interested in books. You might not read them again, but they briefly take you back to those innocent times when books were a new discovery.

             And second-hand bookshops are cheap too; they allow you to get a book for a few dollars and are sometimes willing give you some of that money back if you later want to exchange your book for another one. You can’t lose in these places; you can only find yet more treasures or memories. If you are like me, you lose track of time and miss appointments because you are lost between the dusty shelves, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a smile on your face, head bowed over a book.

             Time slows down in here – you are in another world where reality has lost its grip and fantasy is in control. Long- live second-hand bookshops!