Musings: Day 2: Bookstore (#100DaysofBlogging)

“I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.” 

― Tahereh Mafi

Nothing has ever made me feel quite at home as much as a Bookstore has. Whenever people want to meet up with me in my city, I suggest coming down to Oxford Bookstore. Or Story. Or Starmark, South City. The bottom line is: I ask them to meet me at a place where I would be surrounded by books.

My sister was an avid reader and I think I picked up the habit of reading books from her. I don’t know when a hobby turned slightly into an obsession and I ended up with a cupboard full of books. And more books overflowing. I have stopped keeping a count on how many books I own. Because I am pretty sure the number is irrelevant.

When I went to Bangalore this month, I had to meet a lot of my friends. And all of them like me, love reading books. In fact I think our friendship is based on the fact that we love reading books. It was of no surprise then that all of us decided to meet up in Blossoms.

Anyone who has ever lived in Bangalore will tell about this one magical place where an entire house is dedicated to books. And they house books for everyone under the Sun! I’m not very surprised that I bought 5 books from there in my first visit! Three of them are Neil Gaiman books. So I have no regrets.

Some of my best memories have been in bookstores. Be it fighting about why Young Adult novels are awesome, or why I refuse to read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child or simply gazing at books! I find bookstores amazingly comfortable places for first meetings. Because the books around you serve as such amazing ice breakers!

You can keep the conversation going in a bookstore no matter what happens because you will never run out of things to talk about. So the next time you’re unsure about meeting up with some. Just suggest that they meet you in a bookstore. If they refuse, there’s your red flag right there. And if they do turn up and turn out to be bores – well, at least you will enjoy yourself in the company of books! 

--

Topic selected by: Leo Da