Some people have church; I have bookstores.
I realize some people will find that blasphemy, but it's true; my place of worship is amongst a row of dusty old paperbacks or brand-new hardbacks that someone read once, or bought for a friend who didn't want it, or just wanted to give back after enjoying said book and hope that someone else would find it amongst the stacks of other volumes and give it a try. There are few such places where I feel like I can spend hours (literally; ask anyone in my family who's ever made the mistake of accompanying me to Books-A-Million or a thrift store in the past, they'll testify to that) just roaming around, looking for something in particular or nothing in general. It's pretty damn relaxing too, if you're in good with the owner of a small bookshop and they let you use the restroom if you have to.
Every Saturday, it seems, I go out early to enjoy a day hitting up various locales in the greater Clemson/Anderson area. After a long week at work or in my personal life, it's my own mini-vacation. Sometimes I have a book in mind that I'm looking for, but more often than not I'm just winging it, seeing what's out there and hoping to stumble across something that will divert me for a few hours, entertain me or educate me (or both). I've been a reader for as long as I can remember, it's one of the things I got from my mom. And it's something that I wonder about sometimes.
To be a reader, a real dedicated reader of books (not just fiction, but non-fiction, essay collections, science books, sports books, and so on), you have to be comfortable with being alone for large chunks of time. Readers are not necessarily social creatures. We tend to hide away from fun, natural light, and conversations. We're happiest, it seems, thrust into a fictional world that only exists on the printed (or electronic) page but which comes alive in our vivid imaginations. Bookstores, however, almost force us out of our shells, because we have to be polite when we ask someone who's standing between us and that Graham Greene novel we want to move out of our way. Or we could just wait till they move on to the James Patterson section, whatevs. To each their own.
The Decemberists seem like a "literary band," which is a nice way of saying "educated douchebags with guitars," because most bands are just douchebags with guitars (tell me you don't die a little inside when you read about how Keith Moon was an abusive prick away from the drum set or that Jim Morrison really believed his poetry was good. Tell me that doesn't make you re-think celebrity hero-worship). But I like what I've heard of them, and "Grace Cathedral Hill," the live version off their live album, made me think of this topic when I was driving to work today. There's a difference between being lonely and loneliness, and to me bookstores (be them big chain places like BAM, where I'm more likely to cruise around the pop-culture or sports sections, or the little neck-of-the-woods places like McClure's or McDowell's) are ways of being alone together, with fellow converts to the religion of the printed word.
McClure's is in Clemson, off the main drag and full of goodies in all the subjects I love. Back when I needed money, I'd take in books there for sale or donations, and sometimes I still see books that I had to part with (or was all too happy to be rid of, in some cases) still on the shelf, waiting for a second (or third, or fourth) home. It's usually a good way to kill time if I have a particularly brief lunch and still have time before going back to work. McDowell's is more for the weekends, because it's in Anderson and way past the mall (which has BAM now). It's this little house just off the highway, a co-worker told me about it and when I found it I was in reader-heaven. It's literally stuffed with books, you can't turn around without finding more than you thought could be in a particular section. If the term "book-gasm" doesn't exist, it should to describe both McClure's and McDowell's. And no, I wasn't paid for those endorsements.
Of course, there are other book-buying areas out there; I sometimes stop at a spot just before you get into Anderson, it's more geared towards mystery-book readers and so, but their tiny non-fiction section has yielded some wonderful finds (and I was a little miffed when I saw a copy of Inherent Vice, which I'd bought new elsewhere, there on the used fiction shelf last weekend). If I have to go to Easley for any reason, I usually stop in a place that's next to the railroad tracks. Odd thing is, every book I've bought there usually ends up unread and donated elsewhere (the trend began when the owner was kind enough to let me use the facilities and, common courtesy being what it is, I bought a copy of The Guns of August even though I'd read it, just to be nice. Ever since, when I get home with a book that I bought there, I automatically lose interest. I don't know why). There are chain bookstores, of course: BAM, which used to be in a shady strip mall in Anderson before it moved into the Mall and got nicer (but I miss the old, seedy location); and Booksmith, in Seneca, which has been more of a lurking destination than a buying one (though I occasionally do feel like committing to a purchase).
You might think I'm wasting gas and money, and you could be right. None of the books I've bought and read have led me to a higher-paying job, a relationship with a beautiful woman who finds my Monty Python-quoting hilarious, or much else that I might want. But until any or all of those things do occur, I can always get away from my troubles for a few hours every Saturday, whether I buy anything or not. Religious experience? Perhaps.
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