A Lust for Lit

Micah McCrary, in Bookslut, writes a love letter to the used bookstore.

From the piece...

“This book is my bible. I hope it inspires you in some way as well. Mandi 12/06.” This is what's written on the inside cover of a book titled Off The Map, authored by Hib Chickena and Kika Kat. I'm standing in the narrow aisles of Chicago's Myopic Bookstore in Wicker Park, surrounded by a cluttered collection of books sitting on an ultra-sturdy set of shelves. When I take the book from the shelf and open the inside cover, this inscription is what I find. Within moments, I decide that I'm going to purchase it.

And every summer, a flock of book lovers storms tents and tables of Chicago's annual Printer's row Lit Fest looking to buy dusty and worn books on sale, most of them probably containing little notes like the one I found in Off The Map.

I think of how this thin but heavy collection of pages was important enough to someone for them to call it their bible. Their little note symbolized a hope that the book might have the same magical effect on the person picking it up as it did on the original owner. It implies that books -- more specifically used books -- have stories to tell that books from chain bookstores simply can't. They have history and personality, which is exactly what readers are hoping to find in the first place when they take a book off the shelf.