Bookshop afternoons should really be their own verb. Sofita and I sat down in a nest of velvet and lamplight, promising to get some actual work done, but instead fell into an impromptu reading-lists-for-each-other exchange and an enthusiastic debate about the superior smell old library paper or fresh rain on pavement. There’s something about the fuzz of dust motes and the hush between page turns that makes every little discovery feel momentous. Pretty sure I left ink stains on the velvet again, but that’s practically a signature at this point. If you ever see two people swapping sticky notes and pressed flowers in public, please don’t interrupt, we’re probably in the middle of reinventing the novel.