text: \"Bitter Chuckle\"\n\nI come here once in a while. Not too often, though. I look at the books, peruse the mags and stare at people in the self-help section.\n\nSometimes I get java from the Starbucks and sit, curious if its bitterness is any match for my own.\n\nOn occasion I buy some books, not because I'm rich or stupid but, rather, I'm old-fashioned and impatient. I don't like reading from computer screens and I don't always want to wait for Amazon. It's comforting to hold a book in my hands; it FEELS RIGHT to turn its pages. The sound and aroma of paper new or old brings back memories of college libraries and all-nighters in dorm rooms. Cheap apartments near railroad tracks and grandpa's sunlit porch on Long Island. Go ahead and laugh but I'm sentimental like that, child. The silliest of things trigger happy memories of old.\n\nBesides, I grow less and less fond of computers and the internet as the years wear on, their constant change and posted nonsense now more a pain than a pleasure. I'll take a tome on my lap or a newspaper on a table any day of the week.\n\nLast time I was here I picked up a copy of \"Catch-22\", \"American Pastoral\" and \"The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.\" A flash of old guilt I'd thought long dead and buried bade me to pick up the Heller book. I had been assigned to read it in high school but never had. The Roth novel was recommended by a friend. And as for the Le Carre? Well, let's just say I miss Cold War histrionics written by old spies. *chuckle*\n\nAnyway, I've rambled enough with this review. You know what bookstores are like. You know what they sell. Come here for the 'feeling' and not the price. Who knows, my little sickly one, you might even find something in the self-help aisle that will cure what ails ya. \n\nI know I did.