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jeanette winterson's avatar

Of course you are right! I think you might need a book group or some new friends who understand. Watching TV is not a social activity; it's a substitute for talking about real things or doing real things all together ! hold the line

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Claire Polders's avatar

I slept among the books there when I first arrived in Paris as a student! Later, I also worked there in the weekends. It was formative.

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Liza Green's avatar

I grew up with parents who loved and respected books, who when furnishing a home had to have a bookcase (remember my dad bemoaning the fact he couldn’t find a second hand one because people never had to get rid of them). Bedtime stories in our family were for generations a ritual. I’ve never been to Shakespeare & Co but would love to. But loved the fact that when Christmas shopping last year the busiest shop in my high street was Waterstones!

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Sheri-Lee Langlois's avatar

This was just the perfect touch for me today, Jeanette! I found reading again 15 years ago. I’d been a really avid reader as a child & teen and then, I let other things take priority. Now, my reading time is my blessing for the day. Thank you. Thank you. You got it “Spot On”! from a readers’ perspective

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Greta Movassaghi's avatar

We can find the same pleasure in public libraries. I encourage everyone to use the library. It's a radical act!

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Win's avatar

And a necessary one…. It keeps the wolves at bay ….read,think,read and breathe.

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wrencomma's avatar

Ah, browsing, serendipitous finding! The antithesis of the algorithm and highly valued by librarians. Thank you for your writing, JW!

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Kate Wales's avatar

If ever I feel lost or overwhelmed, I head for a library or a bookstore. Always find something, although I never know what I’m looking for.

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Tom Cox's avatar

"Reading isn’t there to make you an identikit of others. To discover yourself involves searching as far and wide as you can. Reading is a big help. There is only so much we can know via direct experience. Reading gives us more time. More lives to live." Yes! Fantastic piece, Jeanette. I really enjoyed browsing and sleeping in shop, and meeting Sylvia, in 2005. That visit was the partial inspiration for this little story I wrote recently: https://tomcox.substack.com/p/old-litkinov

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Win's avatar

I read Jeannette’s post with joy ..it’s always very good to know there is a TRIBE out there to which I belong even as I don’t know who they are or what they look like but we meet in a bookstore…I was in Paris one time many years ago and went to Shakespeare & Co (no queues) and found a lovely welcoming space where somehow WE bookish types, knew we were ‘home’. I love bookstores where one can sit, look, full of the adrenaline of the book junkie … and fall hopelessly into a dreamy state just absolutely in thrall to paper! But - what paper! Find a book haven today….

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Randi Triant's avatar

Loved this post. An incredible bookstore with a luscious history (told beautifully as well in Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart).

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Sonora's avatar

Oh God, she burned your books. That gutted me. There’s something so comforting about a bookstore. There’s really nothing else like it.

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O’Hooley & Tidow's avatar

Thanks Jeanette. Our little boy Flynn loves books and has just started blending words together. Today was pit, rag, win and dad.

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Astrid Madeleine's avatar

Beautiful writing Jeanette, thank you. It brought up memories throughout my life about reading as a way to survive, to escape, to find a sanctuary, a safe haven, an ‘elsewhere’ beyond reality…

Entering libraries, bookstores, just as books themselves hold that secret promis of stepping into a different universe, of opening ways that seemed closed before. I’ll never forget the summer of 1980, after my father died I was in shock and held everything in. I fled/traveled to France and believe it was somewhere in Brittany, that I stepped over the threshold of a bookstore. Browsing among the books, I began to feel the urge to run to the bathroom to ‘discharge’. Finally at ease among the stories in all those books I was able to let go of all the ballast and felt immense relief….

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Jenny Dixon's avatar

This landed with me perfectly today. I’ve always liked a book but lately reading is all I want to do.

I picked up a short story by Alan Bennett last week, wherein the late Queen Elizabeth II takes up reading with gusto and finds herself spoiled for any of her other duties or activities.

Her aides and staff find her reading infuriating. My life’s companions find my hobby similarly antisocial.

I can understand their point in a way but I can’t help thinking we’d actually all be happier if we just “discovered” I am right about books and spent our evenings reading but together instead of me upstairs and the others watching the tv.

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Fee turner's avatar

please keep writing ... thank you

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Carole Thirlaway's avatar

I loved this writing. Shakespeare and Co is my favourite bookstore in all the world. I’m so sorry for your books being burned but so pleased it inspired you to write your own, all of which I love!

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