The Bookshop on the Corner

by Jenny Colgan

Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.

Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days.

Because life is like that, isn’t it? If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again.

And some people don’t. Some people go through life not really deciding to do much, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also a decision. You’ll get somewhere whether you put any effort into it or not. But doing something new is so hard. And a few things can help.

Some people buried their fears in food, she knew, and some in booze, and some in planning elaborate engagements and weddings and other life events that took up every spare moment of their time in case unpleasant thoughts intruded. But for Nina, whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book. Books had been her solace when she was sad, her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down.

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can’t fix anything. And your life might turn out to be full of regrets.”

Here in the Highlands, it rained and it rained and it rained until it felt as if the clouds were coming down and getting in your face, rolling their big black way toward you and unleashing their relentless showers on top of you.

“I never understand,” he said, shaking his head, “why anyone would go to the trouble of making up new people in this world when there’s already billions of the buggers I don’t give a shit about.”

Be silent, hide away and let your thoughts and longings rise and set in the deep places of your heart. Let dreams move silently as stars, in wonder more than you can tell. Let them fulfill you—and be still.

It’s like an entire generation has been thrown into a world they don’t understand and where nothing makes sense, and they’ve just been told, tough luck, learn how to type or you can just starve to death.”

Now, it’s people coming in because they’re desperate. They’re cut off from the world because they don’t have the Internet or their benefits have been taken away and they can’t make ends meet, and nobody is left out there to care because they cut and they cut and they cut. I’m a librarian, and now I’m an IT support worker with a side order of psychology, addiction counseling, and social work.

There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew—apart from, sometimes, music—to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words