Chamblin Bookmine

This is not Chamblin Bookmine.

         In the city I live in there is a bookstore called Chamblin Bookmine. It is the largest used bookstore I have ever seen in my (still young) life and after my first visit it became my local happy place. I go there on Saturdays after paydays when, in the grips of the delusion of being slightly wealthier than I was the previous day, I immediately feel the urge to buy some books, when in truth all my money should go toward necessities and I can't afford to buy more books. I shouldn't. I do anyway. 

       This past Saturday was no exception. I made the 20 minute drive north from my apartment humming a happy tune all the way. After several abortive attempts at parallel parking upon my arrival, drawing some curious looks from passersby, I decided to park in the back lot where I always see a car with an I HEART DR. WHO sticker in the back window. That sticker tells me I am in the company of kindred spirits - people who know what a Dalek, a Tardis, and a Time Lord are.

        The inside is a giant labyrinth of raw wood shelves filled to sagging with every possible book you can imagine. There are arrows on the floors and attached to shelves to lead you to corner nooks and new annexes, closet-sized rooms hand labeled  'Horror Room', 'Terrorism', 'Erotica', 'Philosophy'. Everytime I go there I discover a new section I had not seen before. 

        Anyway, there I was, just browsing in the Philosophy section when this gorgeous, intense, Ryan Gosling - look-a-like brushes past me while mumbling 'Excuse me', and he looks at me, and we look into each other's eyes and walk together, trance-like, out of the store to a nearby cafe to drink coffee and discuss who our favorite characters were in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, thus revealing or true selves. And then I snap out of my waking dream to see a creepy old bum leering at me from 'Crime & Suspense'. 

        And I go home - alone, but happy. Why? Because after searching the entire store (and several sections more than once) I found a book that I had been looking for since my time in Cebu -Alain de Botton's On Love, just in time for Valentine's. In light of it being February, my purchases leaned toward the Romantic - Alain de Botton's On Love, The Romantic Movement (also by de Botton), and a collection of short love stories (authors include de Maupassant, Nabokov, Calvino) - an Everyman's Library Pocket Classics edition that's just lovely. 

        Last weekend reaffirmed Chamblin's as my happy place. It's made me think that maybe I can find just what I'm looking for. It may be right under my nose. 

       Picture from photographer's website

       

 *Please excuse the weird sentences, grammatical and typographical errors. It's four in the morning, I'm tired but can't sleep so decided to clean my kitchen and then write this post. Will *yawn* edit later. Thanks for dropping by, Bibliophiles! Please come again soon. Oh, and if you're really bored here's my personal blog ---Sitting Pretty in Cebu City. 


Come again soon! Promise, will actually start talking about a book soon. Promise, also, to be more coherent.