The Lending Library

by Aliza Fogelson

I was now holding the book innocently in my hands, like a normal library-goer. Which I was. Except for my overwhelmingly passionate desire to read books and reread them, hold them, surround myself with them, and yes . . . sometimes even smell them. It wasn’t just the heady scent of glue in the spine. It was also the scent of the pages—timeworn or slicked with new ink—and the old cloth cases, how the linen had aged. The smell of imagination and escape.

I was drunk on pastry.

The library was like this too—you could get exactly what you were looking for or surprise yourself.

did she have any idea of the burning urgency of reading for a book-loving child, how two weeks was a complete eternity without a new book to dive into?

Books and food, two of my favorite things! What more could a girl want?”