Alive

I did a strange thing today.

I went into a bookstore — made of bricks and mortar! — and bought a few books, instead of browsing, checking prices and buying the books on Amazon (don't judge).

Don't get me wrong, I love Amazon and ebooks, but online shopping can't compare to seeing piles of books laid out — actually being able to see all sorts of different books. I think that's why I love being in secondhand bookshops, where there are even more titles. And the smell of printed books! Mmm.

I think sometimes it's worth paying a bit more for the experience and as a conscious economic choice to keep these bookstores alive. If bookstores are no longer economically viable to operate, it's pretty unlikely that they would be subsidised like museums and galleries, and that would certainly be one less reason to be alive!

Anyway, I was intending to buy only a paperback Far From The Madding Crowd, but the Waterstones staff clearly had different ideas when they put this eye-catching title on the display shelf at the entrance.

(And so my pile of unread books grows.)