Thursday, June 9, 2016

The joy of books.

Our new library is now open on Parsons Ave. Its around the corner from our house. I joined it yesterday. I hadn't been in a library for far too long. There is something about being surrounded by books that I adore. I could look through them for as long as I wanted, then choose something that caught my eye, but that I knew nothing about, and then sit in a comfortable chair and read for a while to see if I liked it. I really did.
The book is by an author I'd never heard of, Antonya Nelson, her short story collection Funny Once. I was halfway through the first story when I knew that I'd been taking her book home. I get to keep it until the end of June. Her writing is excellent, I don't think i'm going to need that long.
The library is a modern take on the old staple, there is a lot of space, a lot of computers, and you check out the books using barcodes on terminals near the main desk. The library was full of people. A lot of kids doing projects the library had set up, adults frowning in concentration at computers, doing work they were trying to get their heads around. And, there were people just sitting around reading. Perfect.
MS stopped me from reading properly for years. Optic neuritis blurred everything into a mangled mess. This began to sort itself out a few years ago. While my eyesight holds up, I will be visiting this little slice of heaven a lot.
i think that I said it before, my kindle is great, but it's not close to the experience of reading a physical book. This was something that I couldn't do for a long time, see mangled mess comment above. 
We ended the day by going to the House of BBQ and Blues, a food truck on Parsons, If you get the chance, go to the library. If you're as lucky as I am, you'll get to end your day with fantastic BBQ.
Post soundtracked by Radio 6.

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