Books

I love books. There is nothing more that I enjoy doing then going to a book store when I have a bad day. I walk in and leave my cell phone in the car. Instantly the smell hits you. The smell of coffee from the café, the smell of fresh paper, and the smell of escape. You look around and people line the tables with their computers and different novels. Headphones are in every ear and a coffee cup in front of every person. No one speaks to each other but you feel similar and you feel like you belong.



I walk the rows and brush my fingers on the books. I touch the new spines and feel my problems fall into their pages. In here the loans, the bills, the fights, the work schedule, all of it fades away. Instead I begin to be engulfed by the financial situation of Oliver Twist, I become a member of the society in 1984, I battle with the Bronte sisters on why their books are so dark and which one really is the better writer. I listen to Nick tell me all about this bizarre man named Gatsby and I sit with Jane Austin and together; her and I become entranced by a happy ending she didn’t get and one that I so often question I will.



Books are so much more then the stories written on the page. They are the stories written in between the pages.

The stories of the authors that poured years into them, along with their hearts, minds, and sometimes sanity. They are the stories of those who have read them before me. The lives that were changed because of them. The Feminist movement being changed by the Feminine Mystique, finally allowing women to be understood and heard in a way they didn’t even know they felt. The Color Purple and The Help allowing us to see a glimpse into the old way of things. Books are a way for us to look into the past as well as imagine a future that falls short after the turn of the page. They allow us to escape reality and run away to Narnia, or Hogwarts.

Books are our stories, they capture the moments in our lives as we read them. They can touch us in the most unexpected ways. They can change us without us realizing it. Allow yourselves to be taken over and transformed.