I’ve been walking through Waterstones Piccadilly on my lunch breaks because I know that I need to get away from my desk and give my eyes a screen break. There are also days when I can’t figure out what to eat so thinking about food just gets frustrating. Instead of wandering aimlessly through food stalls at the market at St James Piccadilly or staring at the shelves at the nearby Pret, I just head to Waterstones and look at the books on offer.
There is an almost indecent pleasure in finding a book that you’ve been wanting to get your hands on for a while.
It’s that moment, after searching through the bookshop (possibly for days during your lunch breaks) and you finally catch sight of it on a bookshelf. Your heart skips a beat then it starts racing because it’s THE book and you just have to have it.
It’s the intoxicating new book smell of it, the weight of it in your hands, the textures of pages, the book cover and the raised feel of the print on your fingertips. It’s the heat that gets generated when you hold it in your hands for a little longer than usual because you can’t let it go.
It’s the giddiness and the I-can’t-stop-smiling-because-I’ve found it feeling as you take it to the till to pay for it so you can take it with you outside the bookshop.
You can’t get that feeling from an e-book or an audiobook (well okay, if you bought the CDs for it…but does anyone actually do that anymore?).
Yellywelly 