  My heart has always been in books. I don’t necessarily mean stories, but actual, physical books. Ones with pages and bindings and serif fonts. Ones that turn brittle with time, their words snuggling back into that soft blanket of must. It is the touch of light dust, the rustle of paper, and certainly—especially—that smell. The inimitable smell, similar to cobwebbed basements but really, fundamentally, unique.
If you want me to fall in love with you, give me a crumbling volume of Mike Gold essays. If you want me to marry you, hide an old copy of Jane Eyre under my pillow. If you want to rekindle the old flame, set me loose in the New York library and watch the sparks fly. Heaven, if there is such a thing, is not all bright lights and clouds. Leave the harps for the cartoon characters. Give me silence—nothing more than the occasional footfall—large, heavily draped windows, a desk, a small lamp and thousands upon thousands of old books.
I would read myself into eternity, and eat that smell for sustenance. It is not very hard to find the root of this fetish. Both of my parents were English professors, so we had no shortage of books in my house. Books loom in the background of every childhood memory, every giddy teenage phone call. Our house smelled like books. Our clothes smelled like books.
Even our pets smelled like books. It was a painful separation when I had to leave all of those books for collage, but I did manage to bring along one full bookshelf that I retreated into when things got too big and strange and scary. The important part wasn't even really reading, but just sitting there with a book in my hands, feeling its weight. It is a mixed blessing that my husband shares my passion for buying books as well as the irrational fear of ever having to give them away. When we packed up our old apartment this spring we filled twenty four boxes with books, much to the chagrin of the friends who helped us move. Our cheaper bookshelves lean under the weight of books.
Unpacked boxes of books still fill our closets. We still have not only the hardbound textbooks, but also the flimsy paper workbooks from French, Botany and Math classes we took six years ago. Together we’re building an eclectic library, from Calvin and Hobbs to The Master and Margarita . We never leave a bookstore empty handed, and our public library, though we love it, is woefully underused. I guess we should probably worry about being overtaken by our books someday. We should worry that our books might eventually fill every room, leaving just a meager weaving path down the hallway.
We should probably worry about becoming a pair of those old recluses who shuffle past their useless furniture muttering to themselves, who walk out the door to buy a bottle of antacid and stronger reading glasses, who might pause under the sun to chat with the little girl playing on the sidewalk, wrinkling her nose, smelling old books. 
