Finding Love in Bookstores

Salon finds love in bookstores, or at least, tries to. Or at least, describes others trying to.

From the piece...

Of course, it's not just staff members who find bookstores and their bookish patrons appealing. There are many reasons why bookstores are naturally romantic environments: the smell of paper, the soft lighting, the baseline understanding that those inside like to read, and are therefore probably not morons. Browsing customers often circle each other like timid sharks, the piles of books in their hands their only weapons. Heidegger implies late-night conversations over coffee and cigarettes; Rumi, a bathtub surrounded by candles. Ayn Rand indicates a need for a wide berth; Sarah Vowell means mornings spent listening to NPR while baking gluten-free cupcakes.

I've seen strangers start conversations over the newest arrivals, and maybe they're also checking one another's hands for tell-tale bands of gold. Well-established couples shop together, the bookstore clearly a part of their routine. Later down the line, they come back with dogs and strollers, but at the beginning, all they need is each other and a room full of potential conversations. Teenage couples curl up together in the children's section and read aloud to each other from their not-too-distant memories, and pairs in their twenties try on adulthood by merging their bookshelves, filling in the gaps by adding an Infinite Jest here, a Middlemarch there.