Foundation is magnificent.

Biblichor is already the word for the smell of libraries and bookshops (old books).
You can't coin it or mint it, but you can use it.

You can literally read books any way you want to. The book police are not going to show up and arrest you.

My favorite thing is finding something you didn't know you were looking for.

The smell. It's almost visceral and feels very comforting. Plus you never know what treasures you will find.

I was kind of appalled by the local moms who posted to fb that this was like the most amazing piece of literature they'd ever encountered. Then I read it and thought maybe I should go back and make a note of who liked it so I could keep them at a distance... but no... I don't wanna know. There is just no accounting for taste.

They have way better selection than bookstores that only stock new titles.

Good ghosts in the books

Cats. It's the cats. There's a proven correlation between the number of cats in a used bookstore and the selection and quality of books in that store. Known fact.

There's also the interdimensional connections they open through the veil of space-time, but we don't need to get into that here.

I've never read this book. But I'm a 30 year old woman who calls my sister Sissy ... I've called her that my whole life so it's weird to say anything else at this point lol probably is weird tho

A lot of libraries have a kiosk t where you can put in keywords and it brings up book suggestions.

I also have some other Karenina moments I prefer to Anna’s death - Levin mowing with the muzhiks, Nikolai meeting Kitty for the first time on his deathbed, and Kitty’s labor all just completely took me in in their own way. I couldn’t pick a single favorite moment. I just finished my first Anna Karenina read and I’m raving to anyone who will listen about it

Oh, the Smells!

Just add a cat to the mix and I'll never leave

It's a comforting atmosphere. There's something about that kind of musty, old book smell that transports me back to my childhood and reading books at our local library.

Literature. What a loaded term that can mean whatever you want it to mean. Foundation is about imagination and ideas. Fiction doesn’t have to be character driven to be great. Asimov had some of the greatest ideas in Science Fiction.

Not knowing what he was thinking, this was my first thought. Kerouac as a novelist, sure. As a party guest, even better. But as a poet?! Going toe to toe with Yeats? I think not.

It was in Carlisle. Outside Harrisburg. I moved away in 2008, so it might not still be there. Even then, the owner made a lot of her money off of online book sales. Another cool thing about the place was one decoration. In the cash register area, the counter and I think the walls were covered with wine corks. Minor, but not the kind of thing you would see in a chain.

I recall a used bookstore in Philly. I drove to Philly once largely for the bookstore. It had a cat. I adore cats. You don't see many cats in stores, though. It wasn't organized well, but that was because they had more books than shelves. Books just stacked on the floor. If I'd lived closer, I probably would have gone there a lot.

A lot of sci-fi seems to be 'idea' or theme-driven rather than character-driven. The characters often just exist as a vehicle for themes so long, dialogue-based scenes (often with very clunky dialogue) are pretty common. If you are fascinated by the ideas, no problem. If you want more "literary" elements - characterisation, believable motivations and relationships and so on - it gets frustrating. Also, I guess a lot of the ideas in sci-fi are recycled; it can be very genre-bound, so a lot of those ideas, once shocking or intersting, are overly familiar now. When Asimov was writing this stuff, they weren't so familiar. I thought Foundation was interesting but I had no desire to continue the series or re-read it.

For me it’s the sense of history. Feeling surrounded by decades worth of old stories and words and pages… it’s so comforting. I love books that are a little beat up and crinkled and have that old paper smell. There’s something magical about it ✨

Nothing.

training in writing satire I hope?

>I'm a writer myself, and if write a book like this and send it off to traditional publishers, it will be rejected

You could never write a book like this.

I get ideas from Goodreads and what has started with a few has grown to over 100 on my TBR list. Then I go pick them up from the library and browse for more random ones

The books help a lot