Confessions of a Bibliophile..

"A good book should leave you...slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it." -William Stryon

Have you ever smelled a book? A well aged one. Just like fine wine, the aroma gets better with time. Though the smell is just an extra perk, its not the reason you opened the book for. When you start reading a book you are transformed, you are in a new world. Every book takes you to a new horizon. You begin to see things differently. You see the sunrise and the sunset as never seen before. Sometimes you get wrapped in a blanket of love while sometimes you are scared to death for the protagonist.

You have the same feelings as Alice when she went down the rabbit hole. A world full of wonders. A dreamland! A place where you are small and can fly or a place where you are the giant. It may be a conference between world leaders, or it may be an adventurous quest for the Holy Grail. You feel the desperation, the pain, sorrow of the protagonist. You fall in love with the princess with the glass slipper. Or was it the lady in the green scarf. No matter who it was or what it was every time

you sit back in your chair and open another book you simply become addicted. You are oblivious to everything else going around you.

Words become the air you breathe, consuming, holding you tight in your thoughts.

Welcome to the world of Bibliophiles. Bibliophilia is the love of books and a bibliophile is an individual who loves books. The trouble with being a bibliophile is that once you come out of the world of books even real life seems dull at times. And you feel and urge to get back to your own world. Sometimes you feel there is a dearth of books. That is when the classic "Bibliophile Threat" is really carried out.

"If some one does not speedily indite

A volume that is worthy of my shelf,

I'll have to buy materials and write

A novel and some poetry myself. "

John Kendrick Bangs

Whatever one says or thinks about it once you have entered the world of books you are bound to be mesmerized by it, consumed in it, intoxicated by it to an extent that you are ready to ignore your "real life".