the devil's reject. [temporarily discontinued]

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On the corner of 5th and Spring street, stood a towering 12-floor structure, with what seemed like an apartment complex on top and a bookstore below, each made distinguishable by a stone-flower pattern that bordered the edges of the building.

The grey stone structure had an antique architectural design. Massive windows enclosed by thin black frames lined the building as rusted black iron gates were left ajar to welcome visitors.

It is an independent bookshop, mainly filled with antique and second hand books, but has new books too. The building is old, and overlooks the pond I visit every now and then. The bookshop is over three floors and is full of tiny rooms and crevices stacked with books. Books are everywhere, shelves cover every surface apart from a narrow strip of floor used for a walkway.

Located in the heart of Los Angeles, The Spring Arts Tower houses the renowned shop, The Last Bookstore. As I walked past the bright green sign that indicated the storefront, beyond the iron gates, and through the glass door, I found myself in a brightly lit four-cornered room. Each wall was painted with colorful patterns of geometrical shapes. To my left, the usual cashier sat behind a counter, reading a yellowing book.

I've always been a reader. I read, voraciously, long before I ever entertained ideas about becoming a writer, and I wasn't fussy. Black print on a white page was pretty much the only specification I had—sure, a magic faraway tree or a set of chipper English school children solving mysteries and devouring tins of condensed milk improved matters, but I'd make do without. I needed to read. I didn't know what else to do with myself. I still don't. A book before school, a book afterwards, in the bath, in the car, in front of the television. I'd read the back of the telephone bill if it was all I had in front of me.

I know I'm not alone in the way I feel about bookstores: the sense that just by stepping through the doorway I've gone down the rabbit hole, beyond the back of the cupboard, to the top of the faraway tree.

There are countless others who value the experience of disappearing amongst beautiful books in bricks and mortar shops run by expert booksellers: the sort who read and think, who love and promote books, who know that what they're selling is so much more than a bound set of pages.

These are the people who put books in the hands of children and parents and those for whom the choice of what to read may seem daunting. Frontline soldiers in the battle for literacy.

I didn't have much money and I had to be intentional in my selections. I'd pull a book from the shelf and study its cover, smell its pages, wander into the weather of its first lines and imagine the storms to come—imagine a wiser, wilder me for having been swept away by them.

I threw myself onto the green sofa furthest from the crowds and lazily draped a leg over the arm, uncaring of the moue of displeasure on some old woman's face.