Returning to my Roots

Literature. Siddhartha, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the newest Pulitzer Prize winner A Visit from the Goon Squad. Falling in love with reading when I was about 27, it's been a mainstay for many years! And getting to read with younger people than myself is a treat; mothers read to children, dads do too; librarians read to groups; book groups read to each other; radio hosts and authors read aloud to fans and fanatics. Reading gives and gives and gives.
In our pursuit to read Barnes and Noble has become a Saturday Disney Land. Families, singles, couples, groups, loners, seekers, readers, kids. Everyone gathers there, in and out, the doors open and close, thresholds to magazines, music, books, each other, journals, cards, calendars and more. The place is a teacup ride.

The coffee shop buzzes as peeps eat sweets and imbibe mochas and au laits, fruit drinks and teas, hot and cold. Drizzling with chocolate, strawberry, caramel, we're diving in. And until the stimulation wears off, or becomes too much, we stay, sit, stray, loaf, wander, meander and glide up the escalator to the second floor where I found a table and chair to myself, with three books and two mags for some reading, some pondering, some looking out the window, some comparing, and some contrasting.

Skinny Bitch is an author I've heard women talk about, but, because of my obsession with not reading what's popular, have not pursued. That is, until the book caught my eye. Delightful, smart, colorful, informative, this is a cookbook for any body, any palate, any time. Yum, yum, yum. With a 13% off coupon, would this be my next book?

Barnes and Noble is here to stay it seems as it's feeling less like a big business and more like an independent bookstore. Employees are super friendly, resourceful, and committed to customer service. The store is centered around the Nook kiosk, and people were milling around and keeping the sales guy busy. He looked pleased to be interacting instead of standing idle. B&N badges are everywhere and employees seem planted all over the store for helpful guidance.

Returning to the second floor, this book vied for the 13% coupon competition: Harold Bloom's The Anatomy of Influence. Ever the wishful intellectual, I can hardly follow one sentence to the next with this venerable man, a Yale professor, so I take it slow and find myself returning to Barnes and Noble in order to read this book. It's not for buying, but for using as a motivator to reading more, educating myself in what literarily I don't know ( A LOT more than I know ). At home, I found Hart Crane's To Brooklyn Bridge in a Literature Anthology. The poem Bloom suggests is as important as Eliot's Wasteland. It's a mighty read for a mighty bridge.
Two magazines remained to consider: Eating Well and Real Simple. Neither was compelling enough for the prized coupon, 13 percent off on the weekend of Friday the 13th in May. Perusing magazines is like eating hard candy, nutritionally weak, sweet in passing, and cheap now but expensive later. Maybe the coupon would end up in the recycle bin. Checking the time, Scout in the car, having given myself an hour at the min. and hour + 30 max, it was time for me to go. Escalator down, walking step by step (Tina J!) the Buy 2 get 1 Free table blocked my quick exit. Caught! for another five minutes in Disney World, B & N got their coupon back and Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage is now at my bedside.

Returning to Literature seems natural right now, and returning to my roots is always a welcome step on this journey.

That's all for now and if you've gotten this far, if you're reading this at all, thanks and cheers to healthy pursuits!

Source: dinneralovestory.com