Bookish haunts – so many of them exist, thankfully for people like us!! Bookstores, libraries, bookshelves filled with books, book exhibitions, mobile libraries, and so on – every book-lover will enjoy losing themselves in any of these places.
Over the weekend, we had our once in a few months visit to Half Price Books. The closest one in our area, is unfortunately not close enough for us. So our visits are too few, at least for me. We therefore make it a point to visit the bookstore in tandem with our once in a few months visit to the Hindu temple in Concord which is an hour’s drive away from home. And I am glad the store is open till 11 pm so we can spend a leisurely couple of hours after we pay our respects to the deities in the temple.
As I read an earlier post about bookish memories, I realized at least half of them were about bookstores and libraries and book exhibitions – places where one can surround oneself with books and be blissfully lost. While I love the convenience and ease of online shopping, at the same time, I mourn the loss of brick and mortar bookstores and leap at the chance to explore any stores I do find around me (luckily, we do have a few in our area). There is something truly magical about being surrounded by books, don’t you agree? Apart from that famed smell of real books, simply browsing through the shelves means the discovery of unknown treasures and rediscovering old favorites. And used bookstores have their own charm – opening one of these old books with reverent care, we might see an inscription written years ago that tears us up or makes us smile, and no matter what fills us up with an awe that is purely books!
As far as such magical places, aka, bookish haunts go, my favorite has to be…, hmm, well, it is a tough choice to make but I would pick Nagasri Book House in Jayanagar, Bangalore, India and any/every Half Price Books store. I would also include local book stores in our area which I have visited a couple of times, mainly to browse and loved them as well – Linden Tree Books, Hicklebee’s Book Store, and Leigh’s Favorite Books.
Question to you, reader: Which is your favorite bookish haunt?
Here is our haul from our recent HPB visit – some for me, and some for the kids… 🙂 Dear reader, which one would you have picked?
London has a couple of great secondhand book shops but I would have to say that my favourite bookish haunt is Hay-on-Wye, a small town in Wales with at least ten different book shops. Amazing place but not that great for your wallet…
Maartje, Hay-on-Wye sounds interesting – both the name and the fact that it is a small town with ten+ bookshops.. need to add it to my someday list 🙂 and i understand how the wallet feels when we visit bookstores totally:)
the library is my favorite place and I always feel like a kid at xmas leaving with all these books 🙂
The library is one of my favorite places too.. need to visit more often than we do at this time..
A good book never fails. I will check these books.
Marjie, sure.. I am to read these myself and check how they are…. except for the Calvin and Hobbes which never fails to make me love it..
There is a great bookstore just a couple blocks from me. It is a second hand store full to the rafters and piles of books in aisles and all over!
would definitely love to explore such a store!
i’m gonna keep my eye out these look pretty good!
I love a local bookstore, but my favorite thing in the universe is to find a good book and sit in nature, in the quiet, and read in the peace.
I haven’t been to a bookish haunt in far too long! I miss it…
We don’t have much around here. We still go to our public library, Barnes and nobles is 40 min drive but we do have a local town book shop that we enjoy going to. I never noticed the smell of books until I started going there.
I remember the first time I walked into a Barnes and Nobles, as an exchange student in America, the world was never the same.