A couple of days ago, one of my favourite (and Edmonton’s oldest) indie bookstores – Audreys Books – finally reopened for in-person browsing, after over a year of online shopping and curbside pickup. I wasn’t able to make it in on that first day, but I absolutely made sure to get in by the second. The act of walking up, pulling open the door, and simply walking in was breathtaking.

With hand sanitizing, masks, and social distancing measures in place, and my COVID-19 vaccinations fully on board, I strolled the stacks not only feeling safe but even moreso delighted to – to borrow a line from Audreys re-opening announcement – “reclaim a little more of the parts of our lives we took for granted.”

I celebrated by, of course, picking up a couple of books that called out to me as I wandered amongst the shelves of printed treasures.

One book in particular caught my attention from, go figure, the “New Unusual” section, newly expanded to two shelves right at the top of the stairs leading down to the children’s book. I opened it up to the first page, saw this spread, and knew it had to come home with me…

Seemed poetic to buy a book about the love of books to celebrate the reopening of a bookstore, non?

A collection of cartoons on the theme of book love, organized in sections with titles such as “I am wanted for unpaid library fines”, “I like to sniff old books”, and “I care about punctuation – a lot”, I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider made me laugh and also feel seen… or attacked… it was one of those two feelings. Or both.

So many feelings, really.

In the end, the staff had to kick me out – yeah, I have a problem. But it’s such a good problem to have. And now that I have full access to one of my main dealers again, the problem can happily get back to growing at full speed.

I left with my new paper friends, already planning for the next trip back.

Happy Reading!

– Winston