If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.
Be still my beating heart Emily Bronte. For someone of whom it was said was happiest in her own company Miss Bronte certainly had the ability to draw us into her world of unnervingly passionate, sometimes frightening love that leaves us wanting and breathless. Wuthering Heights takes us on a reckless journey of obsessive love and desire, it beats us through every chapter and leaves us bruised but wanting and I would suggest it begs the question is it better to be loved in a pat of the hand, kiss on the cheek Diamond Wedding Anniversary kind of way that warms the heart and weakens the knees or to feel the intensity and insanity of a love that sits like an elephant on your chest, burns through your body with a heat akin to molten lava and bends your brain until you forget your own name but comes and goes like a tornado?
From Wuthering Heights to Winnie the Pooh and Shakespeares Sonnets to WH Auden nothing expresses love like great literature and so with Saint Valentines Day approaching why not give books as a token of your friendship, esteem, love, passion or indeed all four.
If you are one of those curmudgeons who hates Valentines Day then I implore you to change your mind, buck up your ideas and join the love revolution...and for the record he or she does not agree with you, they do mind and it is important. I know, like Christmas and Easter Valentines Day does elicit a certain amount of commercialism but that does not have to be you. DO NOT PANIC we got this. You do not have to end up with a battered bunch of flowers or the last box of Maltesers from the petrol station. Nothing says I love, care, want, appreciate, desire you like a book.
Go to uk.bookshop.org/shop/madhatterbookshop and peruse our Valentines list, we are sure you will be inspired.
If you are still a curmudgeon then read Wuthering Heights and if after all that love and desire you still feel the need to complain to everybody who will listen about the cost of delivery charges from the local florist or the inflated prices of a bottle of Champagne in the lead up to February 14th then you are indeed very nearly a lost cause and we need to talk!
Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.
William Shakespeare
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