This February, love is in the air.... and in the stacks at Harvard Book Store. In honor of Valentine’s Day and Harvard Book Store’s Seventy-Fifth Anniversary, we invited readers to share their stories of the love they found (or lost) in the aisles of a bookstore, be it with a person, an author, a fictional character or even a beautiful, elegant, life-changing idea.

Gentle Reader’s story “The Right Book” wins our prize for our favorite story. It reminded us how books can change our lives, help us survive, and push us to grow into someone we weren’t sure we had the strength to be.

We loved all the stories that were submitted, but want to award honorable mentions to three in particular.

Kit’s tale of a love almost lost and then found with a little help from a friendly bookseller wins our kudos for Best Use of Bookstore in the Pre-Internet Age.

Elizabeth’s account of the enduring love that blossomed between a customer and a bookseller (despite their differing tastes in books) is awarded our Best Reason to Work at a Bookstore (Besides an Employee Discount).

It took us a minute or two to figure out what Mia Celine was talking about, but when we realized that her verbal swooning was over Atticus Finch, we yielded to her metaphor-rich slice of literary pecan pie. She wins our prize for Best Example of Literary Love/Lust. Don’t tell her husband.

We want to thank everyone who participated in the contest – we had a wonderful time reading all the submissions. They reminded us of the enduring importance of books, and the role bookstores play in connecting readers with books, readers with each other, and readers with themselves.

Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at Harvard Book Store!

Submitted by Gentle Reader

The Right Book

Our Saturday routine was fixed but never boring. Our outings included the Harvard Book Store, an early movie, dinner, and sometimes, depending on our moods a second stop at the bookstore before heading back. Separate shoppers, I browsed upstairs while he would go down, until we later caught up in the back aisles of psychology or women's health, each satisfied for the time being.

For years after we broke up and were only friends, we followed this choreographed sequence, so carefully nuanced that familiarity didn't cross over into romance and upset the balance. But "always" and "still" and "maybe" stayed in my thoughts and from time to time I felt compelled to say something that broke our unspoken rules.

One winter afternoon, walking towards Mass. Ave., I asked if he ever thought we could be more than friends. "Now?" was his loud, incredulous answer. Instantly, I sickened and blanked out. Because, I couldn't see clearly or say anything, it was fortunate that it was cold enough to warrant keeping my arm tucked into his.

At the bookstore, he smiled unknowingly at me and went downstairs, while I stood stunned, tears about to brim over, in front of a table piled with books. There was Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart." Still frozen, I read several pages about love and loss when her husband came home, unexpectedly asked for a divorce, and her world instantly stopped. Then she counseled how to withstand such paralyzing moments that most of us encounter. I recognized myself and made my way back.

Harvard Book Store saved me. I found precisely the book I needed to come unstuck literally and get through the next bit of time without crying or running out of the store. Instead I read on and bought the book.

I've moved away now, but I still love the Harvard Bookstore. It brought me much pleasure, induced me to buy so many treasured books, and saved my dignity. My name will stay on the mailing list.

Submitted by kit

We had lived together 2 years; we were academics, over-articulate and over-rational.

He was a few days from leaving for a conference in Australia, but I had to cancel. He was angry. “I have a profession, too,” I countered. He raised his voice; words were exchanged. We did not speak of it again; soon he stolidly climbed into his cab to Logan. It was 1988, before everyone had email or computer-phone. Though he left an itinerary with phone numbers, it was pricey to call, and Sydney was 17 hours later. Or earlier? Connecting was not easy.

He told the answering machine he arrived, a brief, cool message. Then nothing. I assumed conference, jet lag, time differences. It nagged that we had not ‘made up.’ Then he was ‘on tour’. Now he has time, I thought, at 5 days and counting. But no call. Finally, I called. But he had gone early to Ayers Rock, and I had no phone numbers for there.

I knew he was working out of Lonely Planet Guide, because I had bought it myself. I also knew there were few places to stay near Ayers Rock. On the 8th unhappy day, at 8:00:01 I phoned the bookstore. To my amazement and relief, someone answered, a voice familiar from frequent, wide-ranging conversations across the Information Desk.

“Oh please,” I said, “I need help - not quite 911, but I haven’t heard from someone traveling. Please, please, can you look up three phone numbers in Lonely Planet Australia?”

“We’re not even open. We’re doing inventory.”

“Please?” I whispered.

The sweet patience of Sanji filled the hanging pause, “Just a minute,” as he put down the receiver.

He found the Guide; the page; the three numbers. I was elated, thanked him with giddiness. I called profligately, leaving the same message at each “I love you.”

The phone jangled into my sleep. An operator patched him through; he sounded wide awake and happy.

“Got your message. Let’s get married!”

We are married still. With a little help from my beloved bookstore.

Submitted by Elizabeth

He was a shopper. I rang the register. He bought books. I shelved, sorted and sold them. Several professions, twenty-two years, and two children later, what I found in the aisles of Harvard Book Store changed my life.

On the evening of February 2, 1985, a particular customer bantered with me about his loathing of cats. From my perch behind the long storefront counter, I was cushioned by co-workers. Confident and witty, that cool-looking customer and I continued to poke fun at a display of cute little feline books. As his purchase of a Marxist analysis of textile mills came to a close, so did our chat. He came. He purchased. He left.

Something lingered, however. To sort it out, I climbed from behind the cash register and headed for the comfort of the aisles. I had recognized my customer as one of our regulars and sensed that the cute cat conversation was more than cute. WOW, I thought as I straightened and tidied the bookshelves. WHAT?, I wondered as I let that silly, clever, cool conversation replay. WOW, again, as I rounded the corner into the next aisle. There he was.

“Wanna go for a beer?”

“OK”

“Great.”

“Bye.”

Not so cool, because I was not sure exactly where or when. At closing time, though, he was there. Without the buffer of co-workers, conversation still flowed, and our Harvard Square haunts were the same. We talked about cats and books, too. I loved British fiction. He read industrial history. Mystery novels were my great escape, and he craved Noam Chomsky. I found nothing more elegant than Lisbeth Zwerger’s illustrations, and he did not own a single picture book. And, yet, our lives joined.

We still own most of the books we amassed in our twenties, and the cast-off oak card catalog from Harvard Book Store shelters our children’s toys. We banter and buy books still. Our children are nearly grown, and I find myself longing for the romantic comfort found in the aisles of my familiar bookstore.

Submitted by Mia Celine

The utter whisper of his name spills into parched ears as though rained from a chalice, a conso-vowel cacophony of ecstacy. Women swoon with resplendent memories of his stern-but-fair demeanor, his penetrating brilliance, his Soulful Eyes of Justice peering through Sexy Eyeglass Frames of Morality. We have fallen desperately for his poor vision; we ache to soothe his cursed left eye with tender care and gentle, wandering hands. We feel loss at his loss, agony at his agony (though our appropriately sorrowful hearts cannot resist noting his presence on the market again). We applaud his steely fortitude, for this humble slice of heaven knows not the evils and petty comforts derived from hunting, drinking, smoking, fishing, or playing poker. This gentle, mental giant needs only to sit in his living room and read. He is dove-like in his manner and behavior, calm as glassed water.

Oh! If only he could be the Super Nanny for just one episode! How our children would thrive under his unrelenting devotion! This writer confesses her weak knees at the line: “Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so that I can look squarely back at him,” and admits to her fantasy of being looked at squarely.

He Who Must Not Be Named (for this writer’s fingers are unworthy of typing such aural ambrosia) quietly, firmly reminds us that the one thing which doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience; that to understand a person you’ve got to climb into their skin and walk around in it for a while; that real courage does not include a gun in one’s hand; that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.

288 pages of finite, yet requited love–for we know that he does heart us too, even if we must sorrowfully let go at the end, every time.

Forget Paris, we’ll always have Maycomb.

Submitted by M. Bennington

I was studying abroad in South America and doing my best to learn Spanish. I took classes in Spanish. I read Harry Potter in Spanish. I watched bad cartoons from the eighties that were badly dubbed in Spanish. I even volunteered to transcribe the Ecuadorian Scout’s merit badge book in Spanish. So, of course, my guilty pleasure was reading in English.

I came across a small bookstore in La Mariscal, the neighborhood in Quito that catered to gringo money. I remember a faded red Confederate flag painted on the concrete wall. It was an island of forbidden language, and I immediately fell prey to its siren call. In my wanderings through those cramped aisles, I happened upon a name that made my inner bookworm perform spontaneous cartwheels. I found The Jesus Incident, part of a series written by Frank Herbert before he became famous with Dune. Herbert was a demigod in my personal pantheon of authors and I’d been looking for his early work for years with no luck. I wrestled with myself, but decided not to buy it; arguing that I didn’t need another thing to carry back, that it would be ridiculous to start in the middle of the story, and that I’d be able to get it back in the States.

The very last day, after my bags were packed to bursting, after I’d left all manner of junk behind with my gracious host family, I went to the airport and found that my flight was delayed by a few hours. Inspiration struck me; I would mend my ways and go buy that rare volume I had snubbed. I turned down that street one more time, walked up to the door, and found it locked. The sign said they opened two hours after my rescheduled flight would take off. There were thick metal bars over the door, but through the glass, not twenty feet away, I saw the cover of the book I would never buy.

Submitted by M. Lamphier

Several years ago I was in working in Harvard Book Store early on a Sunday--maybe April, maybe May--getting us ready to open. Glancing out the window there was no missing three people standing out front: a young woman in a wedding gown, a young man in a tux, and another man weighed down with cameras and other equipment strung around his neck. As I let them in, the couple told me they were being married later that morning at Memorial Church, and had met while browsing at Harvard Book Store; could they take some of their wedding photographs in the store? They were here for quite a while, back in Fiction, presumably in the spot where they'd met. If they read this, we'd still like to see the pictures.

Submitted by adorsk

Pick-Up Line

There is significance in beginnings, if we only listen. I discovered this fact one day when, tormented by loneliness and despair, I made my way to the basement of the Harvard Bookstore to drown my sorrows in words. There, in the yellow glow of low ceilings and cramped stacks, I found her.

I stood along the side wall, poring over a used Van Gogh anthology, and heard a man in the next aisle read aloud the first line of Middlemarch. “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.� The line roused me from my reading. I looked up and saw her. She was tall and graceful in worn jeans, and something in the way her hair tumbled over the shoulders of her green faded sweater caught me.

But she did not see me then. Near the counter, an old man was reading Ralph Ellison. “I am an invisible man�, he began. I felt lost, alone. Look up, I prayed to her, please look.

As if in response, she lowered her book and met my eyes. I stared. Behind me, an opening line of Nabokov rang out: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loin.� She tucked a strand of hair away from her face. I grew warm. To my left, a student quoted the beginning of Fahrenheit 451: “It was a pleasure to burn.� She smiled at me. I ignited.

I caught myself, torn for an instant. What would come of this?, I thought. I remembered the past, and I was afraid. A woman two aisles over began the The Satanic Verses: “’To be born again’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die.’ And then I knew. I gave myself up, breathed in, and turned towards her.

She scribbled something onto a bookmark, and started towards me, eyes locked with mine. She carried Moby Dick. As she brushed past me up the stairs, she slipped the bookmark into my pocket, tilted her lips close to me ear, and whispered, “Call me, Ishmael�

Submitted by Fionna

My gloves covered my face like a surgical mask, even minutes after I had escaped the cold. I found myself a nobody amongst hundreds of books whose creases told their age like wrinkles. There were only a few people in the used bookstore, and I wondered how many of them were actually there to buy books. I blew into my gloves for warmth and my eyeglasses instantly flooded with fog. I scrunched my nose, allowing my glasses to fall and began to look at the books that lined the wall.

An old woman waddled past me. She wore a vest that proudly declared the name of the bookstore across her plump shoulder blades. I scrunched my nose again, returning my glasses to the bridge of my nose and sighed. Audibly.

“Can I help you?� The old woman asked without looking.

I responded to those shoulder blades. “How do you choose which books should face out? Which will be seen?� She raised her shoulders only to drop them. I looked back to the wall of books and barely noticed her waddling away in silence.

A few elegant covers stood in plain sight next to lined up comrades. I frowned at the thought of hundreds of books that going unnoticed as a simple result of the way the stood. I wondered if any one else had thought of this, and instantly felt selfish. I shrugged then, the way the old woman in the vest had taught me.

The binding of a particular sideways book caught my attention, the dark blue stood out the way negative space screams in a pretty watercolor painting. I cocked my head and read the title of that inconspicuous book. I cocked my head the other way and read it upside down. I pinched the book and wriggled it like a loose tooth until it came free. A gap was left, creating an endless darkness in its place.

A squeak, a scuffle, and suddenly a pair of small eyes looked at me from where the book had been. I poked my nose in the crevice and whispered.

“Hello.�

Submitted by Dan Pope

Law school, Boston, the mid-eighties. I didn't much like the curriculum. I didn't like the case studies (tedious), the research (more tedium) or my classmates (with a few exceptions). Every chance I had, I hopped on my bike and followed Memorial Drive into Cambridge. I was tuition-poor, with only a few dollars to spend on books, so I went directly for the remainder tables, which were located upstairs, then, at Harvard Bookstore. All those brand new hardcovers, costing only $2.98 or $3.98 each. Which to choose? I could afford only a few per week. I bought Denis Johnson's first novel, ANGELS, just because I liked the cover. Ditto Robert Stone's A FLAG FOR SUNRISE. Whoever picked those remainder titles knew what they were doing. You could hardly go wrong, not for that price. I'd pile the books into the plastic bag, hook the bag around the handlebars, and tool back to Boston, happy, a night's diversion guaranteed, something to read other than the dreaded legal text books. Thank goodness for Harvard Bookstore. It helped get me -- and who knows how many others -- through law school.

Submitted by Mark

I remember his striped scarf above all, as he searched through the cookbooks, trying to choose one his father might like.

Women aren't supposed to fall for men with bleach-blond hair and romantic pasts checkered with other men, but my romantic curse has been simply this: to want the unattainable in velvet pants.

I watched him from behind the counter, as he dipped down to read the spines of the lowest volumes, browsing from Rombauer to Vongerichten in one sweep of his crystalline blue eyes.

I knew he worked in a restaurant at night, and that he earned very little placing special orders for the store. I wondered if he ever noticed me standing at the register when the store was full. I wondered if he could see me tentatively sweep my freckled hand through my straight orangish hair, petting myself like I would pet my cat Roger, at night when he would clamber up on my quilt, looking for my hand.

I wondered what his lovers were like. Were they young, like the boys who sold second-hand books and talked their way into indie-rock shows for free, or did he bed older men from Cambridgeport, who bought biographies to read at night in their one-bedroom apartaments?

I wondered why he stood at the information counter sometimes, and looked down the rank of registers, as if he'd left something on the counters or on the shelves, Did he see me standing there, or was he merely plotting his next cigarette, in the doorway between our windows and the windows of the poetry bookstore one door down?

It was 2001, and there was a sense that this boy who loved to read cookbooks and sometimes watched me the way you would a flock of unexpected birds in your field of vision, was crouching down in the stacks, waiting for one word from me, and then he would show me into the hidden recesses of his life with no hesitation.

That was when Louise Gluck approached the counter with an armful of paperbacks.

Submitted by Abigail

This may not be creative, but it's terribly sweet. Just after college, I got a job in the small bookstore in my hometown. I was involved in a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend from college and was preparing to move to be with him when he began law school. But fortunately fate had other plans in store! There was a cute boy at this bookstore, and eventually I dropped the old boyfriend and started seeing this cute boy. The bookstore management thought this was a terrible idea and tried all they could to hinder our relationship (for example, putting us on opposite work schedules so we rarely worked together and also had no common days off). Seven months later, we got engaged. (I left the bookstore around this time to start a career in publishing.) A year later, we got married. We just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. My husband is still a bookseller, I'm still in publishing, and our house is filled with thousands of books.

Submitted by MsHalston

In April of 2004, I was working as a bookseller at the Moravian Bookshop in Bethlehem, PA. A customer named Randolph walked in and I asked if he needed help. He was looking for a copy of Fargo Rock City. We didn't have it, but I ordered him a copy and we talked about how funny Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs was. I told Randolph his book would be in the next day--which he later told me he didn't believe--and that we would call to tell him it was available.

The next day, I asked my coworker and friend, Emily, if I could call when Randolph's book arrived. She obliged me and when he came back to purchase the book, Emily and I were kicking each other behind the counter. Randolph thanked us both and left.

As is the case with most handsome customers, I figured I'd never see him again. I did see him a few times over the summer, but he was only walking through and I had books to sell.

On September 13th, two days after my 23rd birthday, I saw a stranger walking around the store before we were open. I notified my supervisor and told him I thought a customer was in the store. He said, "No, that's Randolph." I knew there was no way two people who looked like that were named Randolph.

We were introduced and I said, "You work here now..."

And he replied, "Who are you?"

I reminded him that I had ordered him a book and then he remembered me. He now blames the fumble on my ever changing hairstyle.

I had plans to move to Boston and did move at the end of October in 2004. It was bittersweet and confusing because Randolph had plans to move to New York City. But instead, he moved to join me in the Bay State on New Year's Eve. We were married October 29th, 2006.

Submitted by catinthewoods

go our separated ways like we always do. to meet in a bookstore, so, we wait for each other reading someone-else's word. after meal and then coffee, we walk to another bookstore, so, i got my fiction and art and you go to your world. then, we go our separate ways like usual.

how many years were there? since 1989 and plus more.

how many cities were there? cross ocean and back.

how many bookstore were there? why bother counting since there will be only more to go.

miss days like these though we were never even in the same aisles. just a glimpse then i always know where you were. just a nod then i know it's time to go. back to our separate worlds.

there were never one love word exchanged. and there shall never be. those lingering dreams and calling will stay put like all those printed words in the store.

when will the next trip will be? another bookstore in New York?

i do hope so.#

Submitted by Midge

I didn’t care too much for her at first—Sylvia Plath that is. As a poetry major, I had to read tons of Plath poems; however, I read them lazily. Daydreaming through them, I wanted nothing to do with Sylvia Plath. Then, about three years out of college, I found myself one day with nothing to do on my lunch break. Walking around wasting time, I spied a former poetry classmate (I’ll call him Sassoon) working in Jay’s Bookstall. I dashed in, heart racing, for I had a slight crush on Sassoon. Books being the last thing on my mind at that moment, Sassoon and I discussed writing, music, and mutual friends. Then, I saw it! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this book resting coolly on the edge of a table; black as mama’s bible and thick as a phonebook, I had to have it on looks alone! Ditching Sassoon with a flick of my hand, I snatched up that book from its cool place; the title read: “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.� Yet, at the sight of Plath’s name I didn’t sigh or toss the book back; instead, holding it bosom close, I rushed to the register. The cashier told me this was the store’s last copy. I left the store in a hurry— not even saying goodbye to Sassoon.

Not knowing what to expect, I began the book immediately. When I saw, early in the book, the delicious line “Mary is me … what I would be if I had been born of Italian parents on Linden,� I knew I’d enjoy the book. And I did! Lovesick, I read that book wildly. I read it on the bus, and in the salon. I bought a bigger purse so I could carry Plath with me everywhere. Once, in black marker, I wrote on my palm: I love Plath! Nowadays, when I open the book to revisit the markings I left in its margins, I always smile at my favorite marginal marking: “I was meant to read this!

Submitted by Edrie

I Heart Haruki in the Isles.

He's Japanese, his name is Harry and his book is about sheep.

I had roamed the city in search of my first book for my first class in literature. I hoped a book about sheep would be an easy way to start. Having grown up on a farm in North Dakota I thought I should stick with what I knew.

The man standing behind the counter piled with books and notices of author events was different than the farm boys I grew up with. His hair was knotted into long ropes and pulled back from his head in an awkward ponytail. He wasn't the kind to plant a field or fix a fence or castrate a calf, but he knew what I wanted.

Haruki is just that way. The book is Wild Sheep Chase and is neither about sheep nor a chase, but then again perhaps it is.

He didn't take my hand but he lead me to a new world, one where a lonely farm girl in a new city could pick up a book by a man several thousand miles and cultures away from her own and directly identify with his kind and seemingly mundane characters who smoked too much, thought too much and made spaghetti like it was going out of style.

I came back, weeks later. Feeling the kind of smugness only one who thinks they are in love and fully understands someone can feel. He and his dreadlocks remembered me.

Back for more Harry?

I was. First I would dance, and then I would go to the end of the world. I would find a sweetheart, sleeping, southwest of the Norwegian wood. Then, almost a decade since the first sheep, I would wash up on the shore and visit my love, in a church surrounded by all of those who found their love in the same isles I had found mine. I walked up to him, my wild heart fluttering against my wild sheep. I pushed the battered copy towards him.

He signed, love Harry

Submitted by Translations

It was summer, but it was raining hard, so I took refuge in a bookstore by the new post office in Bourgas, a small town on the Bulgarian sea coast. I browsed through the poetry section and spotted a name that sounded familiar; someone had recommended this book, so I bought it and, once the rain ended, read it cover to cover on a bench. I left soft wet spots on the edges of each page. It was a book about going home, and stirring words into a substitute for it, should this home shift and disappear.

A couple of months later, at a literary seminar, his name was on the list - a complete coincidence. So I locked my eyes to the door and waited. He was fifteen minutes late; then, it took me an hour to get around to introducing myself. Then, it took us a year and a half to fall in love. Now this (if you don't happen to like poetry) is the true story.

We are now on the two opposite ends of the US, taking good care of our accents, studying literature, emailing poems back and forth, and calling each other from bookshops and libraries that kindly ask us to speak more softly, even though (or especially since) they don't understand a word we are saying. This summer, we're going to Bourgas. I promised to take him to this bookstore, even if it rains.

Submitted by Elizabeth

He was a shopper. I rang the register. He bought books. I shelved, sorted and sold them. Several professions, twenty-two years, and two children later, what I found in the aisles of Harvard Book Store changed my life.

On the evening of February 2, 1985, a particular customer bantered with me about his loathing of cats. From my perch behind the long storefront counter, I was cushioned by co-workers. Confident and witty, that cool-looking customer and I continued to poke fun at a display of cute little feline books. As his purchase of a Marxist analysis of textile mills came to a close, so did our chat. He came. He purchased. He left.

Something lingered, however. To sort it out, I climbed from behind the cash register and headed for the comfort of the aisles. I had recognized my customer as one of our regulars and sensed that the cute cat conversation was more than cute. WOW, I thought as I straightened and tidied the bookshelves. WHAT?, I wondered as I let that silly, clever, cool conversation replay. WOW, again, as I rounded the corner into the next aisle. There he was.

“Wanna go for a beer?�

“OK�

“Great.�

“Bye.�

Not so cool, because I was not sure exactly where or when. At closing time, though, he was there. Without the buffer of co-workers, conversation still flowed, and our Harvard Square haunts were the same. We talked about cats and books, too. I loved British fiction. He read industrial history. Mystery novels were my great escape, and he craved Noam Chomsky. I found nothing more elegant than Lisbeth Zwerger’s illustrations, and he did not own a single picture book. And, yet, our lives joined.

We still own most of the books we amassed in our twenties, and the cast-off oak card catalog from Harvard Book Store shelters our children’s toys. We banter and buy books still. Our children are nearly grown, and I find myself longing for the romantic comfort found in the aisles of my familiar bookstore.

Submitted by Matt Robertson

“Love in the Time of Decay�

The shop was a primeval forest. Ferns and saplings grew up through cracks in the tiled floor, and in the back the upper limbs of a mature oak had forced their way through a skylight. Rain dripped through holes in the ceiling and gathered below into rivulets, which wound through the undergrowth. I heard a consumptive cough in the distance so I set out in search of its source.

Crickets chirped in the middle-ground. Vines crept invasively up the bookcases and across the aisles. Over and under these, through the dank and gray I plodded till finally I discovered a great oak desk piled precariously with ancient books. Behind those books sat the oldest man in the world. His attention was fixed on a bowl of berries and nuts that presumably he had gone out and gathered from around his shop. One at a time he pushed the morsels through his withered lips.

“Question,� I said. Eventually he looked up and registered my presence. A small bird fluttered by. “Do you have a local history section?�

“Local history,� echoed the Methuselah, across a chasm judging from the delay and the faintness of his voice. He pointed a gnarly finger in a nonlinear direction.

I wandered vaguely for some time. None of the shelves were visibly labeled, and an old growth layer of moss covered most of the spines. The books that were exposed looked like an endangered species, and none of them were quite what I had in mind. After a while I realized I was lost. But I could still home in on the old man and his chronic cough.

“How do I get out of here?� I asked when I arrived back.

“Young man,� he wheezed, and my heart skipped a beat. “I’ve been asking myself that question forever.�

Submitted by Baba Yaga

In my mid-twenties I lived in a tiny studio that was so small you had to climb a ladder to get to the sleeping loft where you'd bump your head if you stood up unless you were 5 or a midget. It was a home where things like ceilings actually fell, and the management people would look you in the face and tell you that for $475 a month in the Back Bay you were lucky, which was code for, “we ain't fixing your ceiling any time soon, girl!� And because I was practically a girl and because $475 was over half a girl's income, I would muster up all my dignity to walk out of that office with my head high. But no matter. I was on my own. And I had a second home.

Housed in an old, renovated theatre, Waterstones was a three-storey bookstore of epic proportions. Where the walls in my studio would close in on me, at Waterstones they were amply spaced; where the ceilings in my studio could fall, at Waterstones they were high and dignified; and where the ladder to my loft would creak, at Waterstones the stairwells were stately and carpeted in a delicious shade of cabernet. Yes, Waterstones was my home away from shoebox, where I would read away winter weekend afternoons, hardly noticing as dusk slipped into icy night. But no matter. I was warm. And I had a friend.

Katherine and I used to make dates to meet at Waterstones. First we'd do a walk-through to gather our stack for the day, me mostly fiction, poetry, and psychology; and she mostly humor and art. Eventually we’d meet at our spot by the comfy chairs. Often we practically closed the place down, but sometimes we'd run over to CVS to try on shades of polish. We'd make single streaks of red on our nails until we found one we liked, leaving the store with our nails looking like bloody zebras, but our hearts warm with laughter.

Submitted by NJG

He was always there in the beginning. For years I would enter that bookstore and wander the stacks and shelves, lightly dragging my fingers along the spines, waiting for something to grab my attention. The texture of the material, the font or cover illustration, the title itself. He would watch and follow me, waiting for the inevitable pause. His fingers would reach out and touch mine. I would quickly turn only to see his shadow lightly dancing away. Every day I'd spy him through the shelf, or around the corner. Always there, smiling and winking just out of reach. Letting me glimpse him briefly before disappearing again. I vowed to catch him someday, this daring imp of literature.

Soon after this avowal, the game came to an abrupt halt. Again I felt the now familiar touch of his fingers grazing mine. I turned and he stood trembling in front of me, holding a book out for me. Silently I took it and opened to the cover page where he had written a few lines. He closed the book and held it shut preventing me from reading his message, his hands warm on mine. He looked at me and then leaned in and kissed me slowly. He stood back, let go of my hands and the book and turned and walked away. Eagerly I opened the book and turned to the cover page. It said simply: "He was always there in the beginning. Every day at precisely 5:45 p.m. he would enter through the east doors and make his way through the stacks. I loved the way he browsed, lightly trailing his fingers along the shelves, touching each book as he went. How I longed to be one of

those chosen tomes, to feel his gentle touch on my spine as he plucked me from obscurity to read the secrets contained within me."

Submitted by Gentle Reader

The Right Book

Our Saturday routine was fixed but never boring. Our outings included the Harvard Book Store, an early movie, dinner, and sometimes, depending on our moods a second stop at the bookstore before heading back. Separate shoppers, I browsed upstairs while he would go down, until we later caught up in the back aisles of psychology or women's health, each satisfied for the time being.

For years after we broke up and were only friends, we followed this choreographed sequence, so carefully nuanced that familiarity didn't cross over into romance and upset the balance. But "always" and "still" and "maybe" stayed in my thoughts and from time to time I felt compelled to say something that broke our unspoken rules.

One winter afternoon, walking towards Mass. Ave., I asked if he ever thought we could be more than friends. "Now?" was his loud, incredulous answer. Instantly, I sickened and blanked out. Because, I couldn't see clearly or say anything, it was fortunate that it was cold enough to warrant keeping my arm tucked into his.

At the bookstore, he smiled unknowingly at me and went downstairs, while I stood stunned, tears about to brim over, in front of a table piled with books. There was Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart." Still frozen, I read several pages about love and loss when her husband came home, unexpectedly asked for a divorce, and her world instantly stopped. Then she counseled how to withstand such paralyzing moments that most of us encounter. I recognized myself and made my way back.

Harvard Book Store saved me. I found precisely the book I needed to come unstuck literally and get through the next bit of time without crying or running out of the store. Instead I read on and bought the book.

I've moved away now, but I still love the Harvard Bookstore. It brought me much pleasure, induced me to buy so many treasured books, and saved my dignity. My name will stay on the mailing list.

Submitted by bronwen

I used to live in Port Jefferson, New York, a little harbor town not far from the University at Stony Brook. It is replete with shops that cater to the variety of people that come into town. My favorite shop was on East Main Street called Good Times, a bookstore that bought and sold used books. Its shelves were always enchanting, I could lose myself in its two floors of books for hours. Over time, I did a few major thinnings of my collection, once when I left for South America, another time when I found myself moving into much smaller quarters. Books, thinned from my collection, sold: it was a difficult task but symbolic of moving on.

In 1983, after spending some six years trying to get over a love, I became interested in someone new and was ready to let someone into my life. We ran into each other at the University, at demonstrations, at parties. I asked him out and we began seeing each other. The first time I spent the night with him, I awoke with the sun coming in his window and surveyed his book collection. There on the shelves were many of my books, maybe five or six, that I had sold years before and that he had purchased from Good Times. He is now my husband.

Submitted by Cantaps

I began reading at a very young age. Instead of the embarassment of having nude childhood photos exhibited in front of potential boyfriends during my adolescence, my mother regaled friends and suitors with stories of my piling books next to my training pot.

Therefore, by fifteen my passion for reading was well established. I discovered Nabokov through the trite expression of judging a book by its cover. There it was, on a bottom shelf in my small town bookstore. I'm talking about the lean legs and saddle shoes of dear Lo, later to be replaced by the suggestive eyes and lollipop lips of another edition. I innocently purchased the book from the wisened proprietor and devoured it.

Up till then my days were spent lingering in the cautious yet dramatic love affairs of the Brontes and the despair of Sylvia Plath. (Pastimes that have yet to grow old for me). But reading the words of Vladimir changed the way I looked at literature forever. The imagery he conveyed through words struck me then, as it does now, as startling, confrontational, yet beautiful. Since then I have delved into the worlds of his many works. All of them are wondeful, yet none have ever remained as vivid in my memory as Lolita.

Submitted by Sam Cha

When the customers leave for the night, the books come out, use their best lines on each other. These lines are always the same, but also always different, always new.

Which isn’t to say that they work. With a rustling noise like a thousand leaves in the wind at the end of autumn, the books try to seduce each other and fail.

Like so—

(PLEASE IMAGINE AN EXPLOSION ON A SHIP)

He says:

“Dreams of rivers, like scenes from a forgotten film, drift through the night in passage between memory and desire. You don’t know me without you have read a book. Call me Ishmael.�

She says:

“Riverrun? I would prefer not to. Alice is beginning to get very tired.�

Him:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.�

Her:

“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me advice: all happy families are alike. But all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.�

Him:

“I know that I am accused of arrogance and perhaps of misanthropy, and perhaps even of madness. But—light of my life, fire of my loins-- there is no scatheless rapture. Never let me go.�

Her:

“What do you want me to say: ‘Yes I said yes I will yes?’ No way. Your mama was the geek, dreamlet.�

Him:

“It was inevitable, the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. But: to be born again, first you have to die. I’m telling you stories. Trust me—I want to start with a tulip. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die. Listen to my last words anywhere.�

The rest is silence:

She settled back to await the crying…

Submitted by susan j

I was seventeen. I had heard about the magic of Harvard Square from a funky aunt and, being something of a misfit in my suburban high school (read: Holden Caufield type dreamer), couldn't wait to check it out on my own. I stumbled into a musty used bookstore on Mt Auburn Street, Starr Bookstore, I think. I wandered over to the Philosophy Section, trying to avoid the watchful eye of the proprietor, trying to act like I belonged there, and trying to hide my excitement at merely being in a used bookstore in Harvard Square. I felt so bohemian. I don't know what I expected to find, but I felt magic in the air. I pulled a few ancient covers off the shelf, including "The History of Philosophy" by Will Durant. I opened it up and was dazzled to find topics like "Materialism" and "Being". I never knew that people talked about things like "materialism" in a book. I was amazed! Of course, to my seventeen year old suburban mind, "materialism" meant the materialistic grab for money and attention that I so despised in my high school classmates. I bought that black book and another titled "Reality", still trying to maintain a teenage sense of cool, and ran down the street glowingly, holding these books tightly like a prize, or a dream, or the key to a whole new world. It was only later, in my college philosophy classes, that I really understood the concepts of "materialism" and "reality" in the classical philosophical sense, but no matter. In the aisles of the Starr Bookstore that day I saw, with the merest possibility of hope, that I wouldn't be in high school forever, and that maybe someday I would meet people interested in reality. I did. The History of Philosophy still sits proudly on my bookshelf, having made it through many cullings of my book collection, reminding me that if I can just find the right book, and the right place, a whole world of possibilities will open.

Submitted by Anton Gubec

Honing my reading skills amongst the bestsellers, a lay-about bitch seemed more interested in my accent than the shopkeepers. Back home I used to read Rilke to my sweetheart, and she laughed when I pronounced 'leibes-lied'. Now voices in the bookshelves giggled with my rendition of 'violinist'. One of the employees passing by encouraged me to read Ginzburg, but I couldn't find that one in Rilke's English oeuvre and preferred the poems I already knew to any others. The tittering bookshelves continued with my 'twilights' and 'tremendouses'. The sleepy black lab barked in chorus.

Submitted by Mia Celine

The utter whisper of his name spills into parched ears as though rained from a chalice, a conso-vowel cacophony of ecstacy. Women swoon with resplendent memories of his stern-but-fair demeanor, his penetrating brilliance, his Soulful Eyes of Justice peering through Sexy Eyeglass Frames of Morality. We have fallen desperately for his poor vision; we ache to soothe his cursed left eye with tender care and gentle, wandering hands. We feel loss at his loss, agony at his agony (though our appropriately sorrowful hearts cannot resist noting his presence on the market again). We applaud his steely fortitude, for this humble slice of heaven knows not the evils and petty comforts derived from hunting, drinking, smoking, fishing, or playing poker. This gentle, mental giant needs only to sit in his living room and read. He is dove-like in his manner and behavior, calm as glassed water.

Oh! If only he could be the Super Nanny for just one episode! How our children would thrive under his unrelenting devotion! This writer confesses her weak knees at the line: “Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so that I can look squarely back at him,� and admits to her fantasy of being looked at squarely.

He Who Must Not Be Named (for this writer’s fingers are unworthy of typing such aural ambrosia) quietly, firmly reminds us that the one thing which doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience; that to understand a person you’ve got to climb into their skin and walk around in it for a while; that real courage does not include a gun in one’s hand; that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.

288 pages of finite, yet requited love–for we know that he does heart us too, even if we must sorrowfully let go at the end, every time.

Forget Paris, we’ll always have Maycomb.

Submitted by kit

We had lived together 2 years; we were academics, over-articulate and over-rational.

He was a few days from leaving for a conference in Australia, but I had to cancel. He was angry. “I have a profession, too,� I countered. He raised his voice; words were exchanged. We did not speak of it again; soon he stolidly climbed into his cab to Logan. It was 1988, before everyone had email or computer-phone. Though he left an itinerary with phone numbers, it was pricey to call, and Sydney was 17 hours later. Or earlier? Connecting was not easy.

He told the answering machine he arrived, a brief, cool message. Then nothing. I assumed conference, jet lag, time differences. It nagged that we had not ‘made up.’ Then he was ‘on tour’. Now he has time, I thought, at 5 days and counting. But no call. Finally, I called. But he had gone early to Ayers Rock, and I had no phone numbers for there.

I knew he was working out of Lonely Planet Guide, because I had bought it myself. I also knew there were few places to stay near Ayers Rock. On the 8th unhappy day, at 8:00:01 I phoned the bookstore. To my amazement and relief, someone answered, a voice familiar from frequent, wide-ranging conversations across the Information Desk.

“Oh please,� I said, “I need help - not quite 911, but I haven’t heard from someone traveling. Please, please, can you look up three phone numbers in Lonely Planet Australia?�

“We’re not even open. We’re doing inventory.�

“Please?� I whispered.

The sweet patience of Sanji filled the hanging pause, “Just a minute,� as he put down the receiver.

He found the Guide; the page; the three numbers. I was elated, thanked him with giddiness. I called profligately, leaving the same message at each “I love you.�

The phone jangled into my sleep. An operator patched him through; he sounded wide awake and happy.

“Got your message. Let’s get married!�

We are married still. With a little help from my beloved bookstore.

Submitted by Ally

Cambridge is a well-known bastion of liberalism, and a bookstore will

always be a liberal's preferred refuge, so it was only natural that I would meet Al Gore

at Harvard bookstore. Al may not know this, but he and I are a lot alike: we

share the same politics, the same first initial, and most importantly,

the same favorite book. During his presidential campaign, my heart quickened when he

revealed that he, too, was particularly enamored of Stendhal's "The Red and

the Black." Last summer, when I heard about his upcoming visit to my fair

city, I began to prepare. I dragged my litter-tossing, water-wasting

Republican friends to see An Inconvenient Truth, only to hear them laugh at the adorable

marooned polar bears. I bought a t-shirt printed with his picture, and the

heartfelt slogan "Al Gore for President!" I sent my parents copies of his

book, and weathered my mother's tactful suggestions that he was, perhaps, a

bit too old for me. My affections were not so easily waylaid. The day of his

visit dawned bright and muggy. Two hours before his scheduled appearance, I

joined the waiting line between Harvard students and a group of San Francisco

activists, and regaled them with Gore trivia. Middle name: Arnold. Hometown:

Carthage. SAT score: 1355. When our part of the line made it indoors, we all

breathed sighs of pleasure: the air conditioning was on. Fifteen

minutes later, the line approached his table. Starstruck and tongue-tied, I stepped in

front of him, and began to say the only words that came to mind. "It's a pleasure to

meet you, Mr. Gore. I love?? Your work? Your politics? That hairstyle? You? Your book?

Submitted by Peg M.

Craigslist Boston: Missed Connections 2/14/07

"I still miss you S!" (HBS - Used Books)

S. - I'm writing here out of sheer desperation. You know the winters are often hard for me. I lost track of P. after she moved out of that big old barn on Brattle St., where we met. We were house mates at first, but it wasn't long before we were lying next to each other telling our stories - you in your handmade Fabiano sheets, and me, well . . . I know we're cut from different cloth. We were together for thirteen years and I thought nothing would come between us. I must have been mad to think it would last forever. We were so different. You were always so elegant - a tall and thin Californian with a straight spine - all earth tones and indigo. I'm still a short and squat New Yorker, with a few more wrinkles than when you last saw me.

I remember everything you told me. You were "split at the root", but somehow you knew your place in the world, and took responsibility for your own identity. Powerful. Womanly. I always was one to tell other peoples stories, and try to make sense of them. Byron and his bears, remember? I've told that story a million times . . . . but I still hold yours dear to my heart. How it was mud season when you were born, how Robin (your midwife) had to carry you up and down a steep deer path to get you in and out - wrapped with the same colors of green and blue in the scarf your mother Adrienne gave her lover. You were always patient and kind with my crazy moods, - as you told me "there must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors."

I still miss you S. I'm sure P. knows exactly where to find you - a limited edition of Adrienne Rich's "Sources" printed by the Heyeck Press.

with love,

Touched with Fire

Kay Redfield Jamison

Submitted by Ewa Erdman

"You know, some things don’t matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a

house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person’s

heart -- now, that matters. The whole problem with people is ... they know what

matters, but they don’t choose it. ... The hardest thing on earth is choosing

what matters." (Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees)

Calvin scurried, hugging the walls, barely glancing in the direction of the discounted calendars and greeting cards. He was a mouse on a mission. It was very quiet in the Harvard Book Store, and the lights were dim. He noted the salt and sand tracked into the aisles by hundreds of winter shoes trekking the sidewalks of Cambridge, and shook his head sadly. It was always like this in February. Alice wouldn’t like it. She was a tiny, tidy little housekeeper, he thought proudly.

He and Alice were among the lucky ones. They lived year-round sharing company with the great writers of the world. They nibbled on the back cover of “War and Peace� together. They were warm and well fed, and had raised several generations of offspring right behind the Philosophy section. They had tried other stacks but none had worked so well. They were in Travel for a while, but the children got too antsy. Calvin thought the Drama section would be stimulating, but the children just acted out. When they finally settled in Philosophy, it put everyone to sleep.

Calvin’s mission was ambitious. Normally he and Alice would treat each other by swapping book reviews. He recommended “The Dante Club� to her at Christmas, and they went for a brief visit to the Craigie Mansion. Alice reciprocated with excerpts from “Tuesdays With Morrie,� which she read with moist eyes and twitching whiskers.

He loved Alice so. He tried to do special things for her every day, but Valentine’s Day is for lifting the heart. Calvin headed to Burdick’s for sweet Alice to enjoy the luscious, famous -- and handsome! he thought -- chocolate mice.

Submitted by RiftValleygirl

Dear Mama Andrew,

How are you? And baby Andrew? Do you remember me? I am Nyambura.

Number one in your reading class in Nanyuki Primary. Long ago! People called me ever-smiling Nyambi. People said I always smiled so big - as if I had nothing to hide.

Mama Andrew, do you remember that day, before you left Kenya, when I read so nicely in class? How the words just came from my mouth like a song from a cuckoo bird?

That afternoon, as a prize, you took me to Nairobi, to the bookshop. Do you remember how the dust in the matatu made me sneeze and how the sun shone so bright it turned your neck red like a flame tree?

I had never been inside a bookshop. Remember how my eyes opened wide and I asked if the books here were all the books in the world? There were so many books, I couldn’t breathe. I started to cry until you told me to stop holding my breath. Do you remember, Mama Andrew, how you said I could choose one book - just one? Finally, I cheated. I picked one book but with many stories: ‘Tales of Mt. Kenya’.

After we left the bookshop, I felt like something inside me had changed, had peeled off, that I would now see things that I shouldn't see, dream things I shouldn't dream. I remember you telling us that you loved books and I did not understand because I did not know it was possible to love something that was not your mother or your brother or your baby. But, Mama Andrew, those stories made me fly to the top of the Rift Valley and look down, like the sun, over everything.

I am now 15 years, and also a mother. Dear Mama Andrew, I want my baby to see the stories that made my dreams big. But there is no bookshop here where I live. Can you please send me a book to read to my daughter? I want her to see the earth in colour too.

Sincerely, Nyambura

Submitted by stone farmer

I first met Lyndon in Non-Fiction (Biography), a big rangy dude with a face like a bowl of concrete and a west-Texas whine that stretched words like rusted barbed wire. He was re-shelving a stack of books and when I saw him put “Ho Chi Minh: A Life� next to “How to Play Competitive Dominoes�, I shivered.

The manager was fuming, but Lyndon had been putting college boys in their place all his life. “Now, Everett� he said, like a G-man about to sell rural electrification to a rancher who went to bed when it got dark anyhow, “Do you want this store to make sense, or do you want it to be Great?�

My friend Bob Caro seemed to know all about him.

“He had issues with his mother.� he whispered over coffee.

Over the next week I watched him and I fell in love. Here was a man that wasn’t afraid to do things.

And then on the sixth day I saw her. She had the hairdo that southern matrons put on the day after their cotillion, the same tight side curls as George Washington. Lyndon’s face collapsed like Teddy sliding off Mt. Rushmore. “Why Lady Bird!� he said, all surprised nonchalance.

Lady Bird. She probably had a sister named Dolly.

I had to do something. “Run!� I shouted, “Run for it Lyndon!�

The store froze like a herd of startled mule deer, but Lyndon wasn’t running for anything ever again, and Lady Bird knew it. I knew that he was desperate for something different, for long curls after a life of buzz cuts, for love not war. At least for a few brief days he was free, before time imprisoned him in history’s paper cage, to pace and roar only at the mercy of his keepers.

Submitted by Piper

It was a long day the day that Ben died. David had not only lost his loved one, but had not even said goodbye. Ben had lived in another town, another part of the country. It was late afternoon and snowing softly when David put on his coat and wandered the cold streets, feeling numb and like the world had irrevocably changed. The images of Ben, warm in his bed every night, flooded him and added to the wetness on his cheeks. He crossed the sodden road, slush wedged between the grooves on his shoes. He felt hateful at the way snowflakes fell on his glasses, blurring the world. Although he passed the burger shop, he felt somewhat nauseated at the delicious smell and had no desire to be around happy people. The tall gray columns and golden writing above the bookstore beckoned to him however and the inviting warmth drifting out the doorway was enough to make him take off his hat and gloves, wipe his glasses and go inside. He walked down the curved stairs to the second hand books. He had always loved the smell of old brown paper. He looked through the travel books and lingered a little longer at the old tomes of science fiction, occasionally pulling one out and caressing its dog-eared corners. David headed back upstairs, where the pristine shelves of white-paged books awaited inspection. After absentmindedly sifting through several children’s books, David noticed something in the corner. The postcard rack was being rapidly turned by a naughty child and every few seconds he caught a glimpse of Ben, looking up at him. He rushed over and grabbed the postcard. It was the last one of its kind. It could have been Ben- the same smooth white fur and those same brown eyes which had loved him for so many years before college. After using up nearly all the change in his pocket David walked out of the bookstore, a precious picture in his hand and a feeling that the pleasant memories now captured would not easily escape.

Submitted by Andrea

He and I met in a graduate literature class—two introverted writers occasionally exchanging shy smiles across the room. And then I emailed him one night in a panic, unable to find the collection of short stories we were supposed to be reading for class. “Surely they’ve got a copy at Harvard Bookstore,� he replied, “I used to work there. I’ll ask them to hold it for you.�

He did just that, and when I went to the store to pick it up, explaining that a friend had called to reserve it for me, the woman commented, “That’s a very nice friend.� It occurred to me then that he may have been flirting.

As I paid for my short stories, I noticed a book propped on the counter. The author’s name caught my eye—it was him! The guy from class had written a book. And he hadn’t even mentioned it when we went around the room introducing ourselves at the beginning of the semester. I immediately liked that about him.

The next class, I thanked him for the short stories and told him I had seen his book. We started a conversation that lasted the rest of the semester. A few weeks into summer, I was already missing our weekly talks, so I invited him to a local reading: Richard Hoffman and Tom Perrotta.

Back at his apartment, he showed me his collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald in translation. We kissed that night for the first time, and we’ve been kissing ever since.

Submitted by john kiehl

Dinner at the Harvard Book Store Cafe on Newbury Street, circa 1983. My heart goes out to a poor Berklee freshman who's playing a beat-up, upright piano somewhere between the stacks. I can't see him, but I can certainly hear him. And, he's committing professional suicide right before my very ears !

He's probably self taught. Wearing his musical heart on his sleeve. His indiscretion: "Tea For Two." Definitely not jazz. At least not jazz by a "Real Book" yardstick -- "The Real Book" being the unofficial canon of the Boston jazz intelligencia. An entirely illegal publication, circulated underground and legitimized only by it's confederates' sincerity. He could be the bravest musician I've heard in 15 years of hanging around the Boston jazz scene. You just don't play a softshoe from the Roaring 20's and expect to be mentioned in the same breath as Boston icons Charlie Mariano, Herb Pomeroy, Dick Johnson and Phil Wilson.

I investigate: Between the stacks a young man sits hunched over the keyboard not looking like he's playing the piano so much as consuming it. Clawing at it. Spanking it. Man and machine come alive. What's missing is a Jacob's Ladder and Gene Wilder exclaiming, "It's Alive !!!"

The tune ends, and the piano player sheepishly pulls a little spiral notebook out of his breast pocket. He keeps a list of the songs he knows -- although memorized he can't seem to remember what he remembers. He's been playing stride piano since he was 4 years old. He learned songs by watching the keys of his father's player piano rise and fall. Since he knows "Girl Talk," my favorite Neal Hefti tune, I ask him if he knows my second favorite Neal Hefti tune, "Cute"? He references the notebook ... "Sure," he says, and so my 23 year love affair with Mike Jones was started.

Others have fallen in love since: most notably Penn Gillette from Penn & Teller who put Mike on their stage in Las Vegas to give others the chance to fall in love with Mike Jones.