Uncommon intimacies

There is something about the depths of the connection through books, be they bonds of curiosity, literature, or ideas, that elicits uncommon and edifying intimacies.

Jeff Deutsch, In Praise of Good Bookstores

We are trained to be quiet in libraries, or at least we used to be. People read in libraries. People write. People whisper. Books themselves have a way of soaking up sound. Their very appearance encourages us to keep it down.

So does this "code of silence" that traditionally is found in libraries also apply in bookstores? It does to some extent, Jeff Deutsch says in his book In Praise of Good Bookstores. Bookstore workers rarely speak to customers unless spoken to first. They rarely ask, "Can I help you find something?" One rarely hears shouting or loud conversations in a bookstore. Even children seem to be less rowdy there.

Browsing is serious business to someone in a bookstore. The less interruption, the better.

Yet there is at least one welcome exception to this code of silence: conversation about the books themselves.

William Kent Krueger

A couple months ago I stood in line to purchase a William Kent Krueger novel when I noticed that the woman ahead of me held a different novel by the same author. I commented on this, and the two of us entered into a brief but delightful conversation about William Kent Krueger.

Many people have had such conversations with complete strangers in bookstores. It is something like conversing with the stranger next to you at a baseball game or during an intermission at a concert. The very fact that you are together at the same place doing the same thing gives you something in common. Most readers love talking about the books they've read, and finding someone with similar tastes can quickly lead to engaging conversation.

Deutsch calls such conversations "uncommon and edifying intimacies." I'll buy that.