To me, there’s something so… authentic about dated books. Like with age, they’ve gained an entire personality of their own. The yellowing of the pages, that smell that you’re not quite certain what it is, but you would happily have a candle scented just like it that could burn for centuries.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Waterstones as much as the next basic bitch. Sitting on a leather sofa with my very original oat milk vanilla latte and my metal straw. Extremely world-saving of me, I know. Surrounded by pristine shelves and even more pristine books. The covers are colourful, and there’s an alt-pop song playing somewhere in the background.
Infact, I love it so much that I even asked for a job there. (If you’re wondering, no, they weren’t hiring. Sad face)
But like I said, there’s something authentic about dated books. About wandering down to the little gem of a bookstore, which is tucked between a bakery and a shoe shop in a part of town that people don’t really care to look at twice. It’s quite un-unique, really, if that’s even a word. The sign is peeling, and it’s painted in a shade of green that you can evidently see the wood through.
Even the windows are grimey, and from the outside looking in, I wouldn’t normally look again. Strange, I would think. Probably run by some… weirdo.
But I came here with my dad a lot as a little girl. Every weekend he would bring me here, and let me run rampant through the twisting and winding shelves- which stretched back for a millennia, ever twisting and leading deeper and deeper. The shelves are disorganised, the lights dim, and it looks like something out of one of those Halmark Christmas films where the baker meets a CEO.
But it’s real, and true, and oh so extremely comforting.
The books are filled with character, all leather bound covers that are plain and unimaginative. Classics, mostly: Dickens, Homer, Shakespeare too. Each page dented with little marks and the inside covers scrawled with worlds. To Muriel, one says, then, Christmas 1984. Christmas 1984.
Another is a manual, the leather so worn it is peeling from the wooden leaf. The spine is cracked and broken, almost dangling from the pages when I pluck it from the shelf, and when I run my fingers over the lettering I can hardly make it out. First Aid Manual, 39th edition. Published: 1939. A timepiece from before the war, now resting lightly in my open palm, and only for a few golden pennies.
Today, books are all fiction and non- biographies not actually written by the rich, but commissioned from talent who sell on their wear, not realising how incredible their creativity is. Authors, who speak such horrid words on social media. Shakespeare had no social media, and nor did Dickens, yet their books still sell. A book cover so plain that it almost transfixed you.
We care about reviews and who’s a Best Seller. And if they aren’t, is the story even worth it? We base our own skills on whether or not we have the degree to do so, but is there really a limit to our own creative imaginations?
Don’t write a story like this- nobody will read that! Your character can’t be a Mary Sue. Your character is too weak!
Everyday, new stories and worlds and characters are imagined. They may be simple and plain, or they may be world changing. The only limit is your self perception. Even if others don’t like your story, there will always be somebody who does. So write your ballads and sonnets and universes spanning several books. Write that character who is unconventionally perfect, or that character who is the worlds worst villain.
You have the power to create a new world- which, in itself, is incredible. And one day, your story may be the one gifted for Christmas; a story that, thirty years later, could be picked up by some young person just wanting to explore a classic.