has always been to own a bookstore. I keep myself awake at night planning my shop. Where it will be; what it looks like outside; constantly rearranging the layout inside. I run over in my mind how to set up the legal end of owning a shop and accounting procedures;  how to source books; what kind of computer set-up I will need to track inventory, even what kind of payment I will accept and how to manage that. I worry about all the practical aspects of owning a shop.

The kind of books I will sell? That’s the easy part. I will only sell what I love, what I like. It will be a bookstore doomed to failure because of that. When love is the driving force then failure is a given.

You can’t make someone love something. Regardless of how truly fabulous and wonderful it might be. You can’t take your joy and pour it on someone and expect it to be absorbed, to become their joy.

Yesterday I needed to experience joy. So I started reading, again, for the 4th time, “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin. This book is joy to me. This book is about love. This book is about the love of books. There is something about people who love books .  They are picky, opinionated but devoted and loyal to a fault when they love – be it books or people.

Rory asked in a post this morning “What is your favorite quote and why do you like it so much?”  How could anyone pick just one? If you are a reader then you have so many quotes that transported you, spoke to you on a deeply intimate level, raised you up, comforted you, challenged your perceptions.

If you have neither the time nor the inclination to read “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” then I offer you some of my favorite quotes from the book – share my joy.

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”

“The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.”

“My life is in these books. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end we are collected works.”