Kimber and I found ourselves with a little extra time before her flight left last weekend so we headed to a bookstore in ATL to look around for a bit. As I was walking in, I started thinking about how I’ve never told y’all just how much I love bookstores so I decided to pull my camera out and document the entire visit for you.

Because there’s nothing more thrilling than a guided tour of Why Amy Beth Loves Bookstores.

Kimber and I split up not long after walking through the doors. I’m sure she had something important to read, but me? I was headed straight to my very own self-help section:

It’s a pretty thick book, but I doubt even it could help. I’m a lost cause. Well, except when it comes to toast. I make really good toast.

Except when I burn it. Whatev’.

When I came out of that section, I found myself face-to-face with my usual favorite area of the store:

I’m going to be honest with you though: I totally walked on past it without picking up even one book. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  It’s like I wasn’t even myself or something.

Which would explain why I picked up this book to thumb through:

It turns out it’s a novel, not a list of instructions on how to be single. I was a wee bit disappointed.

I got myself together, however, and headed to my other favorite section of the bookstore: BIOGRAPHIES! I’ve never mentioned this on the blog, but I love to read any biography I can get my hands on.

I spotted another book that caught my attention, The Five Love Languages Singles Edition. I’m really fascinated by the idea of love languages. In fact, I am the weird girl who routinely studies her friends to try to figure out what their love languages are so I can love them to the best of my ability. I had never seen a version of the book for singles though, so the little book and I found ourselves in a comfy chair.

I expected the book to just focus on the love languages themselves, but the author just starting hitting the hard stuff from the very first chapter. As I read his explanation of why we may desire certain types of love more than others because of things that happened to us in childhood, I suddenly had this whole new understanding of why I crave a couple of types of love more than the others. I didn’t get past the first chapter of the book because, by goodness, I had started crying right there in that bookstore and it had the potential to become the ugly cry and stat.

I got myself together and headed over to the wrapping paper section because I love that kind of stuff which is where I found this darling cupcake wrapping paper that I just had to show you:

And then there were the greeting cards, of course. I love to write cards and letters to friends. I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually set aside Sunday evenings to write handwritten letters.

Oh, and there was ribbon, too. I love ribbon. Can’t figure out how to really use it well, but still love it.

It was there on the ribbon aisle that I realized that I had neglected my highest priority when it comes to bookstore visits: checking to make sure each store has a large stock of my favorite book ready for the masses. Now, normally it isn’t that hard to locate this particular book on the shelves because — how can I put this subtly? — BETH’S HAIR IS HUGE. But I couldn’t find it this time, until I finally saw one lonesome copy tucked away in the corner of a bottom shelf.

Which I promptly moved to an eye-level shelf because, obviously, someone doesn’t know where my girl Beth (and her hair) belong.

Nobody puts Bethie in a corner on my watch. Nobody.