In praise of library books

And here you thought this post was going to be a gratuitous, non-book related one about the relentless Sex and the City coverage that is so all-pervading that it's starting to make my nose bleed. But no! This is not some cheap excuse to show a photo of Big in bed with Carrie. Note what Carrie is holding: a library book.

Said book prompts a conversation between the soon-to-be-unhappy couple, with Big saying she must be the only person in NYC who checks out library books, and Carrie saying how much she loves the smell. Then she makes him smell the inside of the book. Not an aphrodisiac for everyone, but I have to admit, I love the smell of library books, and thought of this scene this morning when I checked out Andre Dubus III's House of Sand and Fog, which I hope to read over the weekend.

Yes, I still check out books, too, as well as the audiobooks I'm always going on about. My house has reached critical mass bookwise, so sometimes it's a relief to have a book I can borrow for two weeks and then return, my clutter demons silenced momentarily. I used to check out suspense novels when I'd decide I needed to go back and read the earlier works of an author I'd just fallen in love with (Laura Lippman was the most recent prompter of this behavior). Now I'm more in audiobooks mode, but this morning, I was thinking, I love the smell and feel and crinkly covers on the library books. If only I had loved the SATC movie so much. But more on that later.

Comments

[ReneRodriguez]

Are you saying you're just like Carrie Bradshaw? By the way, ZOHAN is Adam Sandler's funniest movie ever, hands down. Seriously. And you know how I feel about that clown.

[Connie]

I am so not Carrie Bradshaw because

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If my fiance leaves me stranded at the altar when I'm wearing a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown and a bird in my hair, I am hunting him down and doing unspeakable damage to more body parts than I can name.

Some things you just can't come back from.

[just sayin']

you know, i always thought my library book, ummm,fixation was my own little personal freak flag, which i attributed to the fact that my first kiss ever happened at 12 in the young adult fiction stacks while the nuns werent looking during a field trip to the town library.

that smell and the crinkly covers, indeed! cant get that zing from a kindle.

[Connie]

Now that is a fetish I have never heard of before!

And what were you thinking, doing that with nuns nearby!? That's several whacks with a ruler, isn't it?

[bibliophile]

OK, so no one but me has gotten library books formerly checked out by a smoker?

[Connie]

That's never happened to me, at least not so I noticed!