Of blogs and old books ...

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things. ~George Robert Gissing


While looking around for a good "day trip" to take with best friend Debbie in celebration of my upcoming birthday, I focused on small East Texas towns (she lives just across the Louisiana/Texas line) within short driving distance that might hold the two kinds of places she and I love to spend time in - antique shops and tea rooms! We've already been to Jefferson, Marshall, Gladewater. Of course we've also visited some of the shops here in Shreveport/Bossier and dined at the fabulous Glenwood Village tea room. We're still deciding on where we want to venture on this future trip but in the meantime as I surfed around for ideas it was neat to see how many of the antique shops listed (not just in Texas or Louisiana) were also vintage book shops. One in particular that I paused awhile to check out is Sow's Ear Antiques of Berryville, AR in the Eureka Springs area. (http://www.eurekaspringsantiques.com/) The proprietors are Susan and Dan Krotz - it appears Susan heads up the antiques part of the business and Dan oversees the books. As I followed the BOOKS link from the Sow's Ear site it became apparent that Dan is not only a fellow bibliophile but a writer, and a prolific blogger! Then, because inquiring minds want to know, I decided to do a search to see what other "book blogs" are out there. As a librarian, I'm already familiar with a lot of blogs focused on the world of librarianship but I've never done a search for ones whose purpose is strictly the review and discussion of books. Here are some of them - there's the really impressive and comprehensive (and obviously named) www.bookblog.net; the plain and simply named For The Love of Books (http://for.theloveofbooks.com/); and my favorite so far, Hip Librarians Book Blog (hiplibrariansbookblog.blog-city.com). These sites hold so much interesting information (for me anyway!) that it really is easy to lose track of time while reading them. Even so, as someone totally enamored of things from the past, I'm glad to know there are still many places someone can go and actually be surrounded by the wonder and reverence of old books. When you browse the crowded shelves or the higglety-piggelty stacks among collections of tarnished silver, depression glass, or vintage tchotchkes, you can finger the well-worn bindings and the sometimes fragile pages, admire classically rendered illustrations, breathe in the musty history - and imagine the faces of past owners or the faint voice of a mother reading to children. Did they love this story the best? Was this volume passed down through generations before it ended up outliving the families who once prized it? Did this dramatic tale inspire a young person to do something special with their life?...I'm really looking forward to a Saturday very soon when Debbie and I make our day-trip outing. We'll enjoy lunch and a spot of tea at some tiny Victorian-themed tea room, then we'll stroll through the streets of our rural town of choice to find antique treasures - and me, I'll be sure not to overlook the vintage books!