Friday, November 07, 2008

A Little Jaunt to Barnes and Noble

I went shopping with my mom, aunt, and grandma today. This is pretty incredible, considering I generally don't care for shopping. However, today I was in the mood, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hadn't noticed until today how long it's been since I've stepped foot into a Barnes and Noble, though. When I walked through the doors and smelled the coffee (wow, I missed a great use of the word "olfactory" here), and saw all the books on shelves and on display tables, memories came rushing back. Hours and dollars spent having a great time in the bookstore. I think I have a different interest every time I visit a bookstore, though. Sometimes I wind up in the cookbooks (vegetarian and desserts), some days it's classic novels (a.k.a. "literature"), on adventurous days, it's the travel section, when I feel like cleaning out old "junk" I check out the books on collectables, and the list goes on forever. Today, I visited literature and bought The Unvanquished by, of course, William Faulkner (definitely my favorite author at the moment). I also bought The Maltese Falcon. I've always heard of it, and it sounded interesting, and since I had a Barnes and Noble gift card burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to go for it. After literature, my next stop was books on writing. Along the way, my mom spotted David Morrell's new book, The Spy Who Came For Christmas in the Christmas display table. Whoa, awesome! I could have had an autographed copy of this book *slaps self in forehead*. Yes, I met the guy who created Rambo at a writer's conference in Scottsdale, Arizona last month. Yes, he was signing books. No, I didn't get one. I mean, I can't say that I'm a Rambo fan (I can't say I'm not either, because I've never seen the movie or read First Blood), but still, I could have gotten an autographed copy of something by the guy who created Rambo. Oh well. But when I got to the writing section, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a book on writing, written by none other than David Morrell himself. This one is going on my Christmas list. On the way out, I thought of the coffee again. If I hadn't been saving my money, I would have bought one for old times' sake. Coffee or no, this day will still make a nice memory for the next time I take a trip to Barnes and Noble.

2 comments:

Roan said...

I had a Barnes & Noble down the street from me while living in Dallas. Girlfriend CeeCee and I spent hours there, choosing books and then scoping them out over a specialty coffee. Mmmm Good. I can smell the coffee brewing now. My old olfactory senses are working overtime.

Ray said...

Book stores are one of my favorite places.

It started way back in high school when it was "cool" between my friends from other schools to go to Barnes and Noble on Friday nights... Read adult magazines, and drink coffee. I didn't realize that almost 10 years later, I'm be addicted to coffee. haa.

It was also the cool place to browse literature for college, and type my college essays.... Ah, I won't forget that. I applied to 10 schools, 7 of them on the East coast, and 1 in Florida.... and 2 in Illinois. I ended up at Millikin because of a MASSIVE scholarship, but they didn't even REQUIRE essays on their application. What a waste!

Either way, I loved your post. And I love that we share that same chill or rush of feeling that the smell of books and coffee can give us.

Happy weekend!