Bokelskere.no

I didn’t want to write books myself, but I loved the idea of some long-dead or long-forgotten travel guide waxing about cathedrals of old and shrines of forgotten gods. I loved how a book, a story, a set of words in a sentence organized in the exact right order, made you miss places you’ve never visited, and people you’ve never met

She couldn’t resist picking up an Austen. It was a copy of Pride and Prejudice with a floral cover she had never seen before. She held it lovingly. There was something about seeing an old friend in a place where she had thought she knew no one. It sent a little happy ringing through her body.

This was clearly a wonderful, well-loved bookstore. Bookshop She had to get it in her mind that it was a bookshop. Before her were the books. On display tables, squeezed into bookcases along the wall, and stacked in a sturdy pile in the corner. It was a place that she would love visiting, if she lived here.

She looked around and was transfixed by the bookish room. The place wasn’t big enough for aisles. Instead, solid wooden bookshelves lined all the walls of the bookstore and cheerful overhead lights lit the back of the store. Resting her hands on the table in front of her, she breathed in deeply. Like she anticipated, the room did smell deliciously rich with the scent of paper, which delighted her.

The sun shone through the window and painted a stripe of sunlight onto the armchair just inside. She could almost smell the special scent of fresh new books and anticipate the feeling of the smooth covers in her hands.

Lucy wandered back into the bookshop. She longed to grab a book from the shelves, settle into the armchair, and just read the day away.

While she waited for Sam, her eyes rested on the satisfying order of the books stacked on the shelves. In each book was a possibility of joy: a magical place to visit, a hero or heroine to meet, or a new friend to make. With grief, books allowed a chance to revisit a story you once shared with the person you had lost.

The comfort she had felt in the pages of books had become so important in the past few years that she liked to have books around her. She had become a permanent resident of several mythical towns in the many mystery series she liked to read.

To sit in Rainbow Valley, steeped in a twilight half gold, half amethyst, rife with the odours of balsam-fir and woodsy growing things in their springtime prime, with the pale stars of wild strawberry blossoms all around you, and with the sough of the wind and tinkle of bells in the shaking tree tops, and eat fried trout and dry bread, was something which the mighty of earth might have envied them.

She left her seat, she would go; one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half, or always suspecting the other of being worse than it was.

He’s smiling and now I’m smiling, and for a second it feels like there’s no one but us, and that it’s always just been us.

I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking or the England of English literature, and he nodded and said: 'It's there.'
Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here.
The blessed man who sold me all my books died a few months ago. And Mr Marks who owned the shop is dead. But Marks & Co. is still there. If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me! I owe it so much.

Byer sover med lyset på, som om de er mørkeredde. Langs gatene og i klynger ved veikryss danner gatelyktene blomsterlenker i nattemørket, lyser opp fortauer og visker ut stjernene. Og hvis disse lenkene ovenfra – fra perspektivet til en astronaut eller en leser – ligner nervebaner som forbinder hjernehalvdelene til en by, er nok det et ganske nøyaktig bilde. En by er nemlig bygd av minner, lagrede erindringer pakket inn i kasser av stein og stål, teglstein og glass, og jo sterkere banene pulserer av lys, desto sterkere er minnene. I de bredere, mer trafikkerte gatene, lever sporene etter store begivenheter – kongelige parader, krigsmarsjer, triumftog – mens rundkjøringene der de store veiene møtes, bevarer skyggene av mindre passende hendelser: opprør og lynsjinger og offentlige henrettelser. Langs elvebreddene spaserer rolige stunder – hundre tusen forlovelser og svik – og i det eksplosive lyset fra transportterminalene lever minnene etter milliarder av ankomster og avreiser. Noen av disse har lagd arr på byens minne, andre kun en overflatisk rift, men alle bidrar til helheten, for det er dette som skaper en storby: den langsomme akkumuleringen av historie, av et nærmest uendelig antall hendelser i et nettverk av gater som lyser opp om natta.

The rain was many miles out, yet here in the garden it had fallen suddenly still and noticeably silent. No birds were calling. No distant dog barked. The muscle in my neck throbbed with an almost electric pulse.
Butler raised his gaze again.
‘They call it the offing,’ said Dulcie, quietly.
I climbed down from the chair. She gestured down the meadow.
‘That distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge. It’s called the offing.’

‘And I didn’t say you were. Romance needn’t mean love hearts and red roses, you know. Romance is feelings and romance is freedom. Romance is adventure and nature and wanderlust. It is the sound of the sea and the rain on your tarpaulin and a buzzard hovering across the meadow and waking in the morning to wonder what the day will bring and then going to find out. That is romance.’

Dulcie’s eyes widened. ‘I knew you were young, but that’s obscene. Sixteen.’
I laughed. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes. Sixteen is barely even a memory for me. Sixteen is a foreign country. Sixteen is a photograph in a suitcase left on a train bound for the Orient long ago. Some might suggest that to have so much ahead of you is utterly enviable, though if I had a chance to do it again I wouldn’t. At least not now.’