On a trip to Barcelona this summer, I was lucky enough to have picked a hotel with a bookstore. LINO is in the breezy hallway the hotel shares with two restaurants and a coffee shop. Its books are a variety of used and new selected by the folks at Blackie Books.
Being a fan of Jeeves and Wooster (the books and the series), I was delighted to find P.G. Wodehouse’s Leave It To Psmith at LINO (You may listen to it here). It is silly. It is fun. It is a bit fanciful. It is just what I expect from P.G. Wodehouse. This little gem sustained me during my flight home from Barcelona and during a quick flight to Berlin. I finished it (on my birthday) while sitting in the sunny park near my home while my dogs rested in the grass. It was sweet.
Side note: I really enjoyed my time at Casa Bonay. I would stay there again if only to check out the new selection of books at LINO.
I am drawn to bookshops. During my trip to the Yorkshire Dales, we went into Haworth’s Main Street secondhand bookshop Venables & Bainbridge. There, I discovered a copy of James Herriot’s Yorkshire Stories. I read James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small just prior to my trip. I was thrilled to find this collection of stories – especially as it includes one about the invitation-sending dog, Tricki Woo. He’s the poster child for anthropomorphism.
My husband and I have had many dates at Barnes and Noble over the years. We have an extensive library of our own. I listen to Audible, am a Kindle reader, and a proud library card holder. I am in two book clubs and looking for a third, though I have more fun reading what friends suggest than many things I’ve read in my book clubs. I need variety and do not prefer fiction over non-fiction, but am generally reading one of each simultaneously. I will read books from fantasy to autobiographies, yet I collect children’s books and spend too much time thumbing through cookbooks.
Books are magical. Even bad ones can whisk you away to another time or place. Too often I endure the bad ones purely from the standpoint I having begun and hope it will get better (optimism) or out of an absurd commitment to the author (guilt). Whatever your fancy, there seems to be a book, series, or entire genre(s) for you. Bookshops can sometimes be like books – whisking you away to another time or place. Some are musty and disorganized. Some are full of sunlight. Most always scream, ‘the hunt is on!’ when I walk through the door.
On most of our family trips, we manage to stumble upon a bookstore or two. What follows is both surprise and amusement. We go in searching for nothing in particular and return to the street with treasures. Always.
Here are some of my other recent acquisitions: Debunking Utopia by Nima Sanandaji, The Curry Club’s Indian Restaurant Cookbook by Pat Chapman, Beastly Behaviors by Janine M. Benyus, The Annotate Mother Goose by William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, and Jeg Elsker Norge by Tora Marie Norberg. It is a ragtag assortment; one, I am sure will entertain, inform, and amuse me.
Happy Reading. Happy Book Hunting.
FYI: I just finished listening to An Unattractive Vampire by Jim McDoniel on Audible and just downloaded Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.. I currently have The Eyre Affair on my Kindle and Pies and Prejudice: in Search of the North by Stuart Maconie and Shopgirl by Steve Martin checked out from my local library.
Will Sweat for Sweets 