While waiting around for a job interview in the rain (it rains here sometimes, to add to the lovely weather patterns, and now that I take hydrology I always thing of ) I stumbled into an old used bookstore. I love old used bookstores. I love the informality, the mustiness, the random old photographs, the fact that it's all a mess. I had about thirty minutes to kill, so I browsed aimlessly.
I'm reminded of the days of summer Prague when I had nothing to do but explore the world. I'd go in and out of secondhand book stores and buy up old stories and poetry books and translate lyric poets. I like new books too, but I love the yellow nostalgia of old ones far more. I grew up with stories meant for boys in the 1930's and though it gave me an anachronistic view of life for the first bit, I miss them. When I go home, I'll spend time in front of a fire reading and reminiscing and loving life.
Anyway, these establishments are run by anachronistic people. I could easily see myself being an antique bookstore owner. I bought a book about a guy who did diplomatic and spy work in Central Asia in the thirties and it's the most adventurous, funny, interesting narrative I've ever read. The shop owner talked to me excitedly about how soldiers in India in the 1890s still wore plate armour and carried swords.
Fuck television. Long live old books.
