The elementary school I spent my first five years in had this amazing collection of Peter Rabbit books that were probably the first books I really fell in love with. Very similar to the ones in the top left corner, they were pocket size with worn gray covers and glossy illustrated pages. The entire series took up quite a bit of space on the end of a section of shelves in the "learning center", a huge central sunken orange carpeted space in the middle of the the "pod" structures that were all the rage in the 70's. I was probably in first grade or so when I discovered them and then subsequently checked out, read, and fondled every single one. It might even have been kindegarten, since I'm not sure I even really could read them early on so much as I loved the tactile sense of them, the smooth dove grey book cloth (though some might have been blue or green), the illustrations, the little library pocket inside that was almost as big as the cover. I remember sitting through the story time, anxious to get my hands on a new book every week.
Spotting those books on etsy also got me thinking about the Weekly Reader/Scholastic Book Club and how I pestered my mother endlessly with the thin little folded catalog, how I would go through and x everything I wanted and then negotiate with mother how many we could afford. Then, of course, all that excitement the day the books were delived, all glossy and shiny in their plastic bags. (Later, I would also get sticker books, which is a whole other post itself.) I was also in love with a set of encyclopedias my grandmother had, a weird multivolume set where each book had a theme, my favorite of which was one devoted to literature and songs (these I think are in my parents garage or basement.) I remember "reading" those before I knew how to read, and later, when we'd inherted them, used them as makeshift textbooks when we played school.
And I was always ridiculously excited about textbooks, especially shiny new virgin textbooks, and even remember the thrill in college/grad school every semester when I stocked up on books, mostly novels and anthologies, then later poetry books. I would get them home and lay them all out. I suppose it's only natural the turns my life have taken me that landed me in libraries, in publishing, amidst so many books (quite alot of them). I still get excited when I get a book in mail, drool over them in bookstores, and it's still as much a tactile thing as it is a reading thing--the cover, the paper, the font, the heft. This is probably why I'll never quite be able to get with the whole Kindle thing, how intimate can you get with a hunk of metal and some pixels....
