Bookshops

I got sucked into the farthest reaches of Borders today. I love bookshops, you can get pulled so far in, going from one book to another, and that's what I did, finding myself spending nearly an hour in there.

To really wallow, you need to be upstairs, away from the crowds (our Borders gets a lot of tourists buying books on York, and calendars). As you wander, the world kind of fades into the background. If that sounds odd, I suppose what I mean is that when I'm absorbed in a book, I simply don't hear what's going on around me. You can speak to me, and I won't hear it.

I wasn't even looking for anything in particular, but I found myself in the Arts section, which led me to Shakespeare, which led me to looking at so many books that I wanted, picking them up, glancing at them, but unable to think of a good reason to buy them. I was very tempted by Dominic Dromgoole's book 'Will and Me', which I didn't buy, but only because of the £17.99 price tag. I just know that one day I'll give in though.

It actually felt a little strange leaving and walking out into the Saturday morning crowds again. Suddenly everything seemed particularly loud, as though the volume had been turned up.