In a recent interview for Bookselling This Week, novelist Laura Dave (The First Time I Saw Him) expressed her relationship to books as "a coming home. I love them more than anything.... Every town I go to, the indie bookstore is the first place I go."
I can certainly relate, although a bookstore isn't often my first stop when I travel, typically having lugged three books around since leaving home: one I'm in the middle of, one I'm excited to start, and a backup just in case the second doesn't meet expectations. Nevertheless, I will absolutely veer into the first indie I notice as if it held the meaning of life itself. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is true. The only real question is how much of life's meaning will fit in my carry on for the return trip.