Let’s Keep Pushing the Doors of Bookstores

There is a good chance that we will be pleasantly surprised

Sometimes strange things happen, surprising and pleasant at the same time. Connections that are made without being expected and that trigger a strong emotion, certainly temporary, but so good to feel.

This is what happened on July 22, 2021, when I walked through the door of a bookstore in the center of La Bourboule, a small spa town a few kilometers from the Puy de Sancy, the highest point of the Massif Central and the highest volcano in France with its 1885 meters of altitude.

It is almost impossible for me to pass in front of an open bookstore without stopping and looking at the shelves of books to find one or the ones that will weigh down my backpack and later my piles of books when I get home. I suffer from a kind of addiction to books. I like to take them in hand, to be in contact with the paper and its smell which is never really the same, before reading them and admiring them once they are stored in my library.

So I enter the bookstore when my eyes land on the shelves just to the right of the door. Travel guides dedicated to the region are winking at tourists among other books and novels related in one way or another to the Auvergne, the region I am in. It is at this moment that I am taken by surprise.

On the left, prominently displayed on one of the shelves, is a book by the great French novelist George Sand (a novelist with a man’s name, you read that right), “Voyages en Auvergne” which contains the accounts of her three journeys that she undertook here in Auvergne, respectively in 1827, 1859 and 1873. This moment could seem quite banal, and yet a feeling of intense pleasure invades me.

That morning, I took advantage of the relative coolness of the morning (the temperature quickly reached 30 degrees) and of the shade offered by the hazelnut tree in the garden of the vacation home to read a long article on the favorite places of inspiration of some great writers who have marked the times. I dive into the intimacy of some of the great names of literature such as Léon Tolstoï, Gustave Flaubert, William Faulkner, or George Sand.

I learn that George Sand wrote most of her novels in one of the rooms of her castle in the Indre region, in the heart of Berry, one of the oldest agricultural regions of France. I know the novelist by name, but I never had the opportunity to discover her pen. I continue reading before putting my magazine down for lunch with my family, and I imagine what my favorite place to spend my writing days would be. A castle surrounded by a large flower garden? I wouldn’t say no.

How could I have known that on that same day, a few hours later, I would come across a book by this writer in a bookshop during a walk? What’s more, a book she wrote after traveling to the area where I am currently vacationing. What a nice surprise! I don’t know if there is a moral to this story, and I hate giving lessons, but if there was an idea to retain, it would be this one: let’s never stop reading, walking, and pushing the doors of bookstores. It’s good for the head and the heart. Plus, it’s one of the best ways to find inspiration to write new stories that may, in turn, inspire others.