Most Interesting Bookstores

Guten Morgen to you book lovers out there.

I received an email from jason this morning directing me to this link - and I decided I simply MUST share with you.

If you love books, you probably love bookstores. Below are some pictures of some of the world's most interesting stores.

Do enjoy!

click on any of the pictures to check out the descriptions and more amazing bookstores.

"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden"

at last night's Bastille Day celebration, two references were made to "candace's bookstore" that reminded me that -

hello, i am wanting to open a bookstore.

i get so caught up in the zillions of lives happening around me, and of course and especially my own. i have an apartment to finish decorating, money to make, work that has been increasingly needy, an overworked husband, an active social life, vacations, writing, and reading to attend to.

so working on my business plan has taken a back burner indeed .

but these two delicious comments seeped in and watered the burgeoning seed of my dream.

BOOKLING! i pray to god i see your fruition.

oh, right. what were the comments, you ask.

1. in response to "what are you doing with your life.." ben said, i am going to work at candace's book store. this proceeded to help us dream about when it's slow and he gets to sit on the end of the bar with a pipe and his typewriter.
2. we walked by the cutest little tea shop with a metal tea pot hanging from the sign, and brad admired it aloud. i said we must do as much for Bookling.
3. Julie talked about opening a coffee shop in/around the store and being the in-house gardener.

Just these little reminders - the hints that my friends are not forgetting my dream - and are also dreaming about it themselves - this engenders passion in this book lover's soul.

Also, today I was interested in the GRE vocabulary list that I studied when I took that beastly test. I found a link to one and have been studying it for some of the morning. Take a looksy and use a new word today!

Mine is fledgling - a baby bird; an inexperienced person.

~mme. bookling

p.s. last week's quote was from Mark Twain.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life

You all know that moment.

It's a sadness unto itself, felt far too seldom, and yet entirely delectable to the soul.

It's 12:30am, and you should have been asleep an hour ago - you have to get up for work! All is quiet in the street outside your window, the oaks waving the midnight breeze into your cracked window. The world is hushed, happily blanketed in moonlight, and where normally your reading makes your eyes heavy - this time, this sweet instance of time when you must be the only person in the world still awake, you are abrim with your own secret world because OH HOLY GOLLY IT'S GETTING SOO GOOD!

and then, oh dispiriting state, you come to the end of a chapter and make yourself peer at the red-numbered alarm clock over your husband's heavy breathing...12:45am, eek. you battle internally - one side fighting for the right to your childhood - to the flashlight under the blankets magic that only a good story can provide - and the other side, oh the other side. the adult knows the child needs rest - for the day forthcoming holds much indeed.

you know the moment.

the sadness, the disappointment, the realization that you simply must not continue your reading adventure with Heathcliff & Catherine, Pip & Estella, Perrin & Ewgene...alas, they must be closed - their journey's paused for your beauty sleep. and it's just so deliciously sad...

you pray (if you still do that childish sort of thing : ) ) that perhaps your dreams, maybe tonight - your dreams will be as exciting, magical, and soulful as your book.

you know the one, the book sitting on your nightstand crying out to you.

wait, wait, little bookling-
your words shall not go unconsumed
like scattered crumbs from my table- non!
you will be savored, every morsel... keep pining for me,
i will hear your plea and return to you yet again.

in case you missed the point, my book is oh so summery and salaciously good. turns out Perrin can talk to wolves. Who knew!?

p.s. last entry was Ray Bradbury. Who knows the author of today's title?

you know i adore thee, yes?
mme. bookling

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture, just get people to stop reading them"

I am going to take some time here and really boast about goodreads.com.

This morning, I found myself bleary eyed at 8am, even with coffee and fruit for breakfast as well as a good 7 hours of sleep. When I sat down, I thought absolutely nothing could really get my wheels turning but there was an email update from goodreads.com.

While there are some frustrations I have with the useability of this website, I find that I appreciate that it fosters my favorite conversational topic, "What are you reading right now and why." I love to see people through the books they are interested in - and when people update and write reviews about what they read - even as a voyeuristic means of understanding another human soul - I can see with even more clarity pockets of their soul long hidden.

I love what makes us who we are - individually.

I was thinking about this yesterday on my way home, hearing some bumpin music from another car as I turned up my classical music - and for the FIRST time really appreciated being in a "free" country. We have ultimate freedom to decide who we are by means of cultural influence (to an extent). I can make myself into any form of person with my unique mix of music, books, interests, hobbies, people, and tastes. This self-made person is so unique to western culture, and I found myself really appreciating how I love what I love and how others love what they love and am fascinated with the process of how this came to be.

Anyway, so I get an email update from goodreads and then it takes me to their website where i read two reviews of friends. Afterwards I realized that it 1) woke me up 2) killed an hour and 3) inspired me to write.

I love how reading does this. I often told my students this - if you cannot find words, read the words of others and soon enough you will find yourself brimming over with something you simply MUST jot down. I really wish people would get more into goodreads.com so I can gather more and more information about what is out there.

but what I guess I am more trying to convey is how books and conversations about books inspire me. i appreciate that this website offers this...

so go log on and start rating some books and tell me dears, "what are you reading right now?"



~mme. bookling.

p.s. any guesses as to the author of today's blog title quote? hint: see below.