A few years ago, while we were in London, I insisted that we visit the Charing Cross Road since books act like magnets to me. Having no other option, my husband had to agree half-heartedly.

Charing Cross Road is a London street that runs north from Trafalgar Square to St Giles' Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road. Charing Cross Road is not just any street with bookstores, it is the street of bookstores in London, as each town should have one, and if it does, that street gets visited by me to the exclusion of any other sight.

My first impression of the Charing Cross Road, somehow, has to do with the way London's traffic lights work. This may be because I first noticed their odd behavior while we were in the cab on the way to Charing Cross Road. The lights were red, green, and yellow as in the US, but when the yellow light came up before it turned green, red light remained; so, we ended up staring at red and yellow lights together. Maybe that's the way things are destined to work on Charing Cross, together