I sometimes entertain thoughts of opening a store. It would be a bookstore, where you could also buy wine and beer. Also cheese, coffee and ice cream. Unlike other wine stores, my store would not match the wine to cheese per se, more to your budget and reading.
Say you come in to buy Donna Leon, I'd suggest a Northern Italian Red. Not very imaginative, agreed, but why ruin something that's just goes together.
I would also, like a doctor, ask for your state of mind and perhaps nr of kids.
Say you have 2 or 3 kids and little or no patience left at the end of the day.
I'd advice you to have a beer and get O magazine for the guilty pleasure of being both cheesy and intoxicated and still picking up some reading advice along the way.
If you looked like you needed to laugh, I'd see what I could do.
If you wanted just a little bit of everything, I'd send you home with The Assassin's Cloak and a bottle of red, coffee and chocolate and a sign saying Don't disturb.
My store would be called Comfort. The Swedish translation is Komfort. As so often happens, the Swedish word can also be read as a combination of other words, in this case the words kom fort - come quickly, stressing the acute need of comfort in a person's daily life.
One day my friend, you might be able to come by my store and I will help you find stuff to read if you need it.
speaking of which: what did you read this summer that you would recommend to other people? And while you're at it, please recommend a suitable snack or beverage to go with your literary suggestion. Thank you.
Some Porter with your Poe or Parker, Tokaji with your Tolstoy? Champagne with your Chaucer or mead with your Mead?
Perhaps you are fully contemporary and would like some single malt with your Silent Wife? Let me know.
