Emma, the Instagram-famous Persian cat that roams Recycle Bookstore in San Jose, is “prissy, finicky, very loud and opinionated.” According to store owner Eric Johnson, there is a long tradition of cats in bookstores, dating back to the practical need of stopping mice from nibbling away at the inventory.

But Emma, Johnson said, has a different function entirely: to give human beings the feeling they have all the time in the world to luxuriate and do whatever they like.

“That’s what every customer wants,” he told San José Spotlight. “The time to rest and read.”

A good bit of time is required to take in the full breadth of Recycle’s sharply curated 100,000-plus inventory of used, new and rare books, much less read them all. Housed in a labyrinth of connected rooms, volumes in every subjec

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