A recent spate of yard sales in my neighborhood proved beneficial to me, but not in terms of the minor purchases I made. Someone on the street where I live put out a pallet piled with books, and as I strolled past the bounty, I saw a note: “Free.” I had a flashback to my teenaged self, when I worked as a page in the closed stacks of the University of Pittsburgh. I covered the floors of my mother’s little apartment with books that I rescued from the library’s trash bin. When my first bride and I set off from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania toward Los Angeles California, we shipped our worldly goods to be stored in her aunt’s garage until we arrived and found housing. A great crate of those goods contained all our books, many of which were lost to mold and mildew when her aunt’s garage developed a roof leak. I mourned that loss for years.
On this recent day, I stopped at the “Free” sign and after some perusal, selected A Room With A View by E.M. Forster. I passed on some other juicy offerings, but on another walk-by, picked out The Amazing Book of Useless Information: More Things You Didn’t Need To know, But Are About to Find Out, from Noel Botham and The Useless Information Society. This last book reminded me of a book I heard about on NPR when I was living in St. Louis, Missouri in early 2000. The book was compiled by 2 high school seniors who had a Web site that featured “dumb laws.” Jeff Koon and Andy Powell made that site into a book called You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant: 101 Real Dumb Laws.
I have more books than dust motes in my house, and I have a lot of dust. My Swiffer dusters cry out in despair when I bring them out. In the last few months, I have read books by Ian Rankin, Richard Russo, Annette Bergman, Michael Connelly, and Marilynn Robinson. I also read Warriors Don’t Cry, by Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the “Little Rock Nine,” the African-Americans who entered Arkansas’ segregated Central High School in 1957. I have books that I have owned for years and never read. When my youngest granddaughter enters my house and says to me, “Boom,” I know that she has read the title of the book written by Tom Brokaw, which I own and have not read. (On it, boss.)
I am a fan of murder/mystery books. James Lee Burke’s Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux and his erstwhile partner Clete Purcell and Walter Mosley’s Ezekiel “Easy” Rollins and his pathological partner Raymond “Mouse” Alexander join with Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch as a few of the many I have read. John Dunning writes about Cliff Janeway, a Denver Colorado homicide detective who loves books, and who retires from the force to become a “bookman” and open a bookstore.
In “A Comfort With Books” (January 11th, 2024, Weekly View) I wrote of being a “book pusher” and how my eldest child learned that lesson. (Note: books were not “stolen ‘for’ her,” but I stole books FROM her.) My youngest granddaughter selects books from the shelves I’ve stocked for her, as well as from my shelves. I love to read, and I acquire books because reading for me, is a tactile experience. I like the feel and smell of books, the sound of pages turning. And guess what?
The Benton House Used Book Sale will start on Friday, July 19th, and end on Sunday, July 21st.
cjon3acd@att.net