errantember

I recently visited spottedvasa in Portland, and one of the major features was a trip to Powell's Books, the worlds largest independent bookstore. Powell's has multiple locations in Portland, but the biggest one takes up an entire city block, and is at least three (I think four) floors high, and is clearly a bibliophile's wet dream. Or so I thought.

Now, I wasn't necessarily at my most together and alert while visiting Powell's, and I definitely feel like I want to go back again when I have more time and energy. But I realized something during that visit that's been creeping up on me for a long time,which is this:

Bookstores aren't magical to me anymore.

Although this is a massive change for me, it's one that's snuck up on me over the years, and it took going to somewhere like Powell's to really fully realize it.

I've always been an avid reader, have out-read most of my friends, and have learned far more from books I've learned myself than I have either from formal education or real life-experience. Trips to Waldenbooks to get lost in the sci-fi and fantasy section were a major highlight of my youth. Half-Price books later took on the magic as a place where I never knew what I would find, but where I knew I would pay less for it.

Half of the original price, in fact!

It was at Half-Price that I first noticed the reduced level of romance. It used to be be one of my favorite hang-outs. It's still the place I'd pick if I could only go one place to meet new people. Somewhere along the line, though, the connection between bookstores and the presence of books in my life has been severed, and I doubt it's a reversible phenomenon.

Stay tuned for more navel-gazing regarding this massive life change.

I finally went through my Delicious Library database and grouped all the books I either haven't read, have only read part of, or feel I need to re-read to have any idea what they were about, and right now I've got a total of 84, which is slightly less than 1/4 of my collection.

I guess I won't, strictly speaking, need to buy any more books at Half Price for a while.

Not that that will probably stop me, mind you...

This doesn't include the hundreds of books I'd read at least once that I'd like to have taken notes on, but didn't.

I think I may create a new "no reading without notebook and pen" rule, which will be very helpful, create a hugely valuable treasure trove of many different kinds of information, and be a huge fucking pain in the ass.

That reminds me, it's time to sign up for Kit's writing club...