Is It a Present?

Why is it that whenever I go into a bookshop the lady at the till always asks me if the book I’m buying is a present? Do I look as if I never read a book? As if I have friends who always read books but I don’t? Do people who buy books always get them for other people?

For heaven’s sake! I’m in a bookshop! I want to browse and then I want to buy a book just for me! It’s not a gift shop. If I want people to gift-wrap a book for me, I’ll ask for it!

If I were to run a bookshop I would probably never earn enough money to keep it going. I would adjust the lighting (don’t you just absolutely hate those fluorescent tubes which illuminate even the farthest corners and make everyone look as if they just left hospital and are still trying to recuperate from some wasting disease?) and create nice corners with comfy chairs and little reading lamps so that everyone could browse at leisure. I would even make a little nook where you could get a cup of tea or coffee. People who love to read would probably stay there for hours and I wouldn’t earn a penny.

Something I also hate is when you enter a bookshop and someone comes up to you and asks you if they can help you. NO, I don’t need help! I just want to browse! Go away! In every shop it’s great when you finally find someone who wants to help you, especially when you get stuck in the dress you were trying out for instance, but NOT in a bookstore! There you need to browse. Those are the shops I never visit twice.

Have people become mad? Don’t they know anymore what books are for? They are for reading! For yourself, not to give away as presents. How can I know what someone else wants to read? When I want someone to have a book I give him a book token so he can go to a shop himself and browse. That’s the whole fun of getting a new book.

Even worse are the libraries nowadays. I usually buy my books because when I like them I don’t want to take them back. I want to keep them even when I know I won’t ever read them again, but there is another reason. Libraries used to be quiet places, havens of rest in the middle of a crowded city and it used to be an offence if you made a noise there.

Oh, how things have changed. Now they have a special children’s corner where there are all kinds of toys. Children are dumped there when the mummies go off to do something else, probably text message their friends in other libraries or have decadent cocktails à la Sex in the City somewhere.

Toys! I ask you! A library is meant for reading and books and getting information and if you are too small for that, you don’t belong there. Or if you are there anyway, you should be seen and not heard (to be really old-fashioned (oh dear, did I really say that now?)).

The last time I visited a library it was as if I had entered a play school. Yelling children everywhere and nobody to tell them to shut up. Needless to say, I left. Fast. Never to return.
I’m thankful there are places online where I can get my books nowadays. At least I can browse there in my own armchair without screaming children or nagging salespersons.

I’m seriously considering emigrating to a country where they still know how to run a bookshop or a library. If you know of one, please, let me know. Rant over. I’m off to read a good book ….