Here Be Dragons

So in the unquestionably awesome news of the week, Winter Garden finally, but finally, has a used bookstore: Here Be Dragons. It's not that the Orlando area doesn't have used bookstores - it does - but until now, they haven't been in easy reach. And this store is: within both trike and scooter distance, conveniently across the street from a non-profit coffee enterprise place and that French bakery I have dragged so many of you to and need to drag more of you to, because, let's face it: cookie addictions should be shared. As should eclair addictions and tart addictions and pie addictions and so on. Also, this is the proper sort of used bookstore, with nice heavy squishy chairs, extra space in the back, and, well, little dragons everywhere. (For those of you who remember the late and lamented Archives in Fort Lauderdale, it has a similar sort of feel, although with fewer weird antiques so far.) The owner and I spent some time chatting, and I sense more good books to come.

Just walking into a bookstore of any kind generally gives me a warm, cuddly feeling - after all, I'm surrounded by my comfort food: books. (Libraries can give me the same feeling, but alas our local library branch has turned more to computers and DVDs and CDs and computer and language classes and the occasional yoga class and such, which is all quite within its serve the public framework, but doesn't quite give me the same books, books, books feeling.) And used bookstores give me the chance to find something half forgotten, half lost, almost gone. I can get lost in them for hours. So, if I vanish from time to time...well, this might be one explanation.