A deep love...

My very first love in life is books. I can't remember a time in my life without books, they're just a part of who I am. When I'm upset, sad, or having a bad day I turn to my books for rejuvenation. (This sometimes leads to accidental orders from Amazon).

Marcus also knows this about me and so throughout our married life on several occasions he has surprised me with a novel. This is way better than flowers. I'll take a new book any day. While in the hospital on bedrest with Eli & Emerson I often sent Marcus on hunts in my schools libraries, he even went to a book signing for me at my request.

I recently started reading The Shadow of the Wing by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I'm literally only a few pages into it but I'm already in love. A book about books what could be better. In just the first chapter alone there are already so many amazing quotes.

So I'm going to share a few with you now because after my day (see previous post) I need something that brings me joy.

"I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day" (4).

"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens" (6).

"In this shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody's best friend" (6).

"Under the warm light cast by the reading lamp, I was plunged into a new world of images and sensations, peopled by characters who seemed as real to me as my room. Page after page I let the spell of the story and is world take me over, until the breath of dawn touched my window and my tired eyes slid over the last page" (7).

"Once, in my fathers bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of the words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later-- no mater how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget-- we will return" (8).

*sigh* beautiful.

This is one book that I actually wish I could read in its original language. If only my spanish were up for such a task.