Book worm

Shining like silver in the middle of a dreary late afternoon shower. Just realized that the first thought that comes to my mind whenever I alight from the jeep to our neighborhood is if the Booksale store’s open. It’s located at Breakpoint, as we always call it, just across Philpost office. Going into this little bookstore gives me an “I’m home” kind of feeling. Sometimes I’d just aimlessly browse around, not really intent on buying anything, reading each title and author, skimming my fingers on their worn covers. Other times I’d try and find a specific title or two, hunting down the shelves to see if I could find what I was looking for. Other times, I get lucky, mostly I had to come back. The store’s relatively new, actually. It got around when they decided to let the U.P. employees’ union use the empty one-floor structure as their headquarters, situated at a corner across the post office. When I was still working at Ortigas, I try as much as I can to hurry home to catch the store open, which is very seldom.

Old used books have their charm. Somehow, they’re more appealing to me than new ones. I probably find it more interesting because I get to chance on a book with a different kind of cover compared to those being sold in the big shot bookstores. Finding one is like finding a unique treasure. And who knows? The former owner would have his or her own history with the book as well, makes you wonder. Why did he buy it? What’s so interesting about it? What did he think about the book after reading it? How much was it when he bought it? Then I’ll wonder as well, why would anyone let go of this book, or that book? I wouldn’t want to sell off any of mine (well, except the romance novels that I could easily borrow from someone, hehe). Why would you let go of something that takes you to so many places? Yup, I’d rather keep them, in case I want to go back.

Books should have more value as time goes by. But, it’s relative. What if the leaves are already worn out? The cover beaten up, torn? The spine aged with creases? How about missing pages? But then again, who’d want to keep an old beaten up book when you could buy another copy, spanking new? Good luck, trees. But no, here comes PDF. Ahh, no more creases, only sore eyes.

I still want it the old fashioned way, hard-bound or soft-bound literally page-turning books. And in a way, I’m still helping Mother Nature by buying used ones. Less demand, less supply. I wonder if taxing books will help Mother Nature, too.

Where’s the world coming to? Bummer.

Links concerning the latest issues on book taxation (yippy):

The Great Book Blockade of 2009

Clarifying the Great Book Blockade of 2009

If you have other links concerning these, please don’t hesitate to share. Spread the knowledge people!