Last week I had two hours to spare as I was waiting for my friend to finish work. I stumbled upon a bookstore in Seomyeon and figured I’d read a book to pass the time. English sections are hard to find in Korea so I knew I had to walk up and down each row, graze hundreds of books in hopes to find an English title, ANY English title (even an instructions manual would do the trick).

It wasn’t until I got to the back corner of the store. English books were crammed together, as if they were only allowed to share that one section of the shelf. They were mostly children and youth books but it was no matter, I picked up Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit, sat on a staggered steps in the bookstore and read.

Two hours passed quickly as I finished the book and looked up for the first time since opening the cover. I sat there on the steps feeling melancholy, drifting from Winnie’s world into my own. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend two hours.

This post isn’t a review of the book, I simply wanted to share how lovely it was to wander around a bookstore, pick up a novel (a classic one at that!) and read it cover to cover with no interruptions. Everyone needs to do this at least once in their life. It’s good for the soul.

My favourite quotes from Tuck Everlasting:

“It’s a wheel, Winnie. Everything’s a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way it is.”

“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”