The world might have gone too tech savvy for our liking at the moment but howsoever might we be gleaming with the blue light of the cell phone or glaring intently at our laptops, there are some worldly things that still retain their simplistic bliss. Bliss we say because that’s exactly the warm feeling that creeps up to us every time we sit curled up with a good book at hand. Book on one hand and cocoa on the other or book on the lap and zone out the world- whatever might be your idea of indulgence, at least no one’s chiding you for this!
Call it your happy haven or term it a totally euphoric experience, whether you are swept off by them or embrace them with enamoring warmth, books indeed can be your escape to a world of alternate reality. With so much charm in hold, books and bookstores alike spell dreams for most of us who are fortunate enough to have the magic unleashed unto them! Let’s celebrate then our undying, ageless love for books with some facts that would sure captivate you even more.
#1
Because we love chocolates at least as much as we love books, we wanted to start the round with something utterly pleasurable. Which is why our first fact would sound so much like all things made for us in heaven! We owe it to Iceland, who have this very wonderful, magical, perfect (we would have gone on and one for eternity if only we weren’t so constrained lesser humans) Christmas winter tradition called Jólabókaflóð or Yule Book Flood. Every Christmas eve, Icelandic people exchange books as presents and read them the entire night away, all while eating chocolate! Sounds like the perfect way to make merry!
#2
Bibliophile being the term used to refer to those of our clan, all the book lovers in the world that is, it’s only expected that we would come up with as exotic a ters for other affinities relating to them. Correspondingly therefore ventures to rule the realm of the literary is the term Abibliophobia.
If you have ever experienced an inexplicable, even irrational, fear of running out of something to read then well, you have experienced abibliophobia. It’s a relief though to finally discover that such a term indeed exists- what with recurring bouts of such fears, we were beginning to feel paranoid already. All we had to do was add an ‘a’ to our philia and there we are in our own land of phobias!
#3
We all have been at least an one time offender of hoarding books after books, reassuring ourselves that we would eventually come to read them. And we might as well, you know, since we are not dead yet. But if ever we happen to turn up as lifeless bodies with a host of unread books in our ‘clutches’ then worry not, we would not have to go unnamed!
We would be guilty of ‘tsundoku’ at best- heck that, we wouldn’t even be guilty. Considering that this particular act is deemed an ‘art’, we suddenly happen to be deserving of way more accolades than what the world wants to bestow upon us! Trust the Japanese to be so noble even with their rebukes!
#4
Source: atlanticteen – WordPress.com
It would be a sacrilege if we let go of this term that perhaps sums up the fancy of every booklover around the world. There’s no denying the outwordly intoxicating effect that the smell of books blesses our olfactory with. Whether you love books or not, you likely cannot ever seem to have enough of ‘sniffing’ them! While that’s the result of some chemical play that lends books their characteristic smell, we are more concerned abut what it brings to us. Sheer orgasm, we tell you for this one phenomenon encompassed by the term called Bibliosmia.
Add on fact: These chemicals that lend books their distinctive smell does more than just spreading the odour (and happiness) around. They also help in determining the age of a book, courtesy a process called material degradomics.
#5
You don’t need any briefing about who or what a bookworm is (you yourself are one). But while we have been thinking all along that this is just a metaphorical term with no concrete basis, looks like we were terribly wrong. We might be bookworms because we love and read books so much but there is another of our kind as well. They however take the literal route around with books, being insects that actually live in and feed on the bindings of books! While we can legit be taking offence at the world for making us slip from our social animal status and having us at parallel with insects, we choose to keep our love above everything else and proudly proclaim ourselves as bookworms! See the heights of novelty love leads us on!
#6
Enough of love, books command some repulsion too. There indeed are people in the world who loathe the ergonomics of learning so much that they turn hostile to books. We refer to them as ‘book scorpions’ in unison but they aren’t the only ones of their kind. Seems like book scorpion makes for also a real species of scorpion, much to our utter delight! The term, in colloquial literal notation, dates back to 1649 when poet Andrew Marvell first recorded it in one of his works.
#7
We all know and condone plagiarists- there’s no second though on that. But little did we know that plagiarists are also called brain suckers. Sounds only apt until we discovered also with utter disbelief that earlier connotations of the term- as early as in 1781- had poor booksellers be condemned as such! That’s such a pity!
