perfect

Our next house will have a library. An honest-to-goodness room dedicated solely to my love of books. All my life I've dreamed of having a library like the ones in Victorian novels - shelves up to the ceiling, rolling ladders, plush carpets and chairs for my relaxing pleasure. And of course a fireplace. You can't have a library without a fireplace. In my mind, reading by firelight is the only way to go. I imagine it to look something like this.

And of course, the smell. It will have that lovely, comforting smell of old leather and musty pages, of adventure and knowledge wrapped inside a cover. Right now we don't have nearly enough books to fill the library of my dreams but I figure by the time we can afford the house that goes with the library, I'll have stocked up some more.

When I get near books, that butterfly, squirrel-y feeling takes over in my stomach and I just want to spend hours picking up and touching every single book. I can't seem to leave Barnes & Noble without buying something. I can spend hours on Amazon just browsing through their recommendations.

I saw recently that more and more people are instead downloading their reads onto an iPad or Kindle. I just couldn't do that. A big part of the experience is holding the book in my hands; turning the pages and hearing the rustle in the binding. I felt sick the other night when I was watching a show and the character showed how he tore out the pages he was done reading so he always knew where he was. He said he'd already read the other pages so why keep them around. I don't even dog-ear the pages because I have the weirdest belief that I'd be hurting the book if I did.

So that's what I want. A real library. I told Jason we need to start saving now because I have a feeling it's not going to be cheap.