Why I Love Comforting Old Novels

     Yesterday I was working at the Menlo Park Library and I came across a display of just the sort of comforting old books I love to curl up with. I picked one I'd always considered reading, Father of the Bride, by Edward Streeter. I've seen the movie, starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor, and I was thrilled with the look of the worn book, with illustrations by Gluyas Williams. (Wasn't it a wonderful thing when novels for adults came with illustrations?) It was a glorious sunny day, and at my lunch hour I walked up Santa Cruz Avenue to Ann's Coffee Shop. It's a vintage sort of place, whose decor looked decidedly 1940s, just like the novel I clutched. I sat at the counter and scanned the menu, which offered specials of "hash" and fresh rhubarb pie, and decided on a grilled cheese sandwich (with tomato). I opened up my novel and spent the next forty minutes reading and eating in perfect contentment. This is bliss, I thought, absolute bliss. Uncomplicated food and an uncomplicated novel (in the chapter I was reading, Mr. Banks' only dilemma was whether to serve martinis or old-fashioneds to his guests). On the walk back to the library I wondered why I was so inordinately happy over such a simple lunch. It wasn't exactly the Ritz, and shouldn't champagne be bliss, rather than iced tea, and shouldn't I have been reading something more intellectual, or at the very least a best seller? But there you are, it was a moment free from worry, I didn't have to worry about how I was dressed, or whether the menu featured something scary like beef cheeks or even the cost, and my book of choice was happy and non-violent (although there were several heated arguments about the wedding guest list and the expense). Today at my lunch I will probably have to face the real world, but yesterday, ah, bliss!