Sheer joy of books and that sense of anticipation

Is there a more wonderful feeling in an otherwise mundane day than that precise moment when you pick up and begin to read a new book?

The sense of anticipation as you digest the blurb on the dust cover; you breathe in the smell and set out on the story that may thrill or disappoint, but which always starts with relish and expectation.

If it’s a hardback, I always take off the dust cover to keep it in pristine condition for the bookshelf after reading.

I’m a gentle reader; I endeavour to never bend or break the spine and I couldn’t even contemplate turning down the ears of the pages to pick up where I left off. I open it just far enough not to split the binding, and a bookmark alone records my progress.

Another member of our household can have their advancement through a paperback recorded by the cracks on the spine that might be detectable from Outer Space; a bookmark would only fall out from between the gaps – if the loose pages didn’t beat get there first.

I’m anal on this one, but I admit that I positively recoil when I see someone double the book back on itself as though they were reading a comic.

And yes, that’s just another one of my idiosyncrasies as opposed to their problem, because they too are just loving their book.

I equally know that while there are some who adore that feel and smell of a brand new book, there are others who love that a book has two stories – the one written by the author and the journey of the book itself.

They look at the list of previous borrowers on a library book; they pause over a dedication inside the cover of a second-hand book; they get additional joy from the fact that they are enveloped in the arms of a pre-loved novel, so they’re giving it a second life as well as saving a small part of the world’s forests.

I get and appreciate that – but my moment is opening a new book with that new book smell, those crisp pages never turned.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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