My friend Paula Nicewanger (co-owner and Creative Director of the Weekly View) returned a book that she had borrowed from my library. I thanked her, and when I took the book into my apartment, I found that it is a duplicate of a book that I already have on my bookshelves. Both books have my name in them. Apparently, I need a “book-tervention,” as I have more books than dust in my apartment. And lately, I have noticed a few duplicates.
I’ve written before of my passion for reading, what my mother called an “escape” from the misery visited upon his family by my father; my siblings and I would spend weekends at the Carnegie Library in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. We brought home the books that we had checked out and returned them the following weekend. Freed from fear, I now chase down and capture books at events like Irvington’s annual Benton House book sale.
The book Paula returned to me had my name and the month and year I had acquired it in ink on the first page. I pulled out its twin and looked inside. My name was written in pencil, which means that it was acquired after I learned from John Dunning’s books about — well — books, that writing in ink diminishes the value of the book. The “inked” one was purchased in December 2005. When I began to write about my duplicate books, I had a vague idea that I had many; my census found that I have four. I have hardback and paperback copies of John Irving’s “The Cider House Rules,” and “A Prayer for Owen Meany;” two paperback copies of Michael Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” and two paperback copies of Ernest J. Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying.”
I have been the beneficiary of friends, lovers, and former brides’ libraries. I own the hardback copy of Pat Conroy’s “The Water Is Wide,” which is duplicated in a bookcase dedicated to my friend Bill Davis. Also in “Bill’s Bookcase” is a paperback copy of Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods;” the hardback copy is on my bookshelves, a gift from Bill’s daughter (who always called me “Uncle CJ.”) My youngest daughter gave me a stack of books from her late mother’s library; Teresa Lynn Slinker Woods died on September 2nd, 2025. (See her obituary in the September 26th, 2025, issue of the Weekly View.) In Teresa’s stack of books were duplicates of John Irving’s “A Prayer For Owen Meany,” (now I have three copies) and “The Cider House Rules,” (again, now three.) She also gave me Wally Lamb’s “I Know This Much Is True,” a paperback copy of the hardback I own, and Anna Quindlen’s “Blessings,” which I also own. Teresa was an avid reader of Kurt Vonnegut, and the “Palm Sunday” that I was bequeathed will go with the three Vonnegut books I got from Bill Davis and the 4 books I already had.
On CBS Sunday Morning, Indianapolis’ own Jane Pauley interviewed Oprah Winfrey, and Oprah mentioned a Countee Cullen poem, “Yet Do I Marvel.” I was happy to be able to walk to one of my bookcases and pull out “The Poetry of Black America: An Anthology of the 20th Century.” On page 87, I found Cullen’s poem. If you saw the interview, look up the poem: The closing line will make the point of what Oprah was saying about her own life.
My friend Bill’s daughter, my “niece” Jessica, once said to me that I had more books than she. She learned then, that I am happy in books.
cjon3acd@att.net