So is it?

Recently I’ve been reading some books which I loved in my childhood and I don’t know why. I’ve smiled while reading about old, steady characters, and stroked the pages of books I’ve bought in used bookstores (both online and not), and in one amazing moment laughed out loud when I found that the person who had sold the book had used a Scholastic book fair flyer as a bookmark.

The books weren’t better than then they are now, at least I don’t think so. Nor are the books better now then they were then, but there’s something safe about them.

I know how these books end, and I know these characters like they’re my best friends.

I know all of my favourite moment in books like Vampire by Richie Tankersley Cusick but yet I discover something new every time I read. Something I never saw on a previous read.

I frequently find myself frustrated that fewer people seem to have read L.J Smith’s Dark Visions series than her Vampire Diaries series. Is it because of the show or was I a particularly strange kid.

Nostalgia is returning to a former time, or a wish to return to a former time. And when I’m opening these books and holding them in hand maybe for a moment I am back there in a tiny room, lying in the sunlight and revelling in the smell of a good book but mostly I’m wondering what I will see next, what nuance I will have missed.

So is it nostalgia? If it is it’s the weirdest case I’ve ever had. Either way I’m just going to keep re-reading.