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.