. . . When you held one of those books in your hands, you were leafing through another person’s life. Someone else had once loved that story, too. Someone else had carried that book in a backpack, devoured it over breakfast, mopped up that coffee stain at a Paris café, cried herself to sleep after that first chapter . . .
— Jodi Picault, The Story Teller
The above words are those of the protagonist about her grandparents’ used bookstore. Picault expresses what I feel when I help with the Benton House used book sale. For “real” readers — as old Granny called us — it is tremendous fun to paw through hundreds of boxes and bags of donated books and sort them into categories. I’m reminded of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates in the movie. You never know what you’re going to find.
We no longer accept encyclopedias, and we discard outdated technical books and books that are dirty, missing pages, or reek of must and mildew because no one will buy them. Paperback romances —“bodice-rippers,” I call em — aren’t as hot a sales item as their covers imply. (However, two ladies spent a delightful hour sorting through tubs of them, and we charged a bargain price to get rid of them.) Readers’ Digest condensed books also don’t sell well. We receive a huge number of religious books. I can’t decide whether Irvington residents are saints, or whether they’re sinners seeking salvation!
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
Oh how rich I am! Last year when I was emptying boxes of religious books out in the big tent where the sale is held, I came across the equivalent of a whole box of Godiva chocolates — an exquisite gem in pristine condition as if it had never been opened.
I paused for a minute, leafed through it and fell in love with it. It’s an illuminated book of the Psalms of King David who was a fine poet. I’ve never seen anything to equal this combination of beautiful writing, fine art and lovely lettering. I paid only a dollar for it, but have had so much pleasure from it that I ordered copies for family and friends from Amazon.
The illustrator was not a professional artist. It took him well over twenty years to complete it as a gift for his wife. Of English extraction, he was born and lived all his life in India so that many of the charming paintings are the exotic flowers, birds, buildings and culture of India. The drawings are keyed to the text. There’s even a spouting whale in one.
Whether or not one is religious doesn’t matter. King David’s words and the artistry of this wonderful book resonate. David lived a busy and complex life. Sometimes when I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by my to-do list, I understand the feeling that he expressed in Psalm 56, “Oh that I had the wings of a dove. I would fly away and be at rest.”
Ever since I was in the second grade and read my first book all by myself, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the magical words and worlds of books and the ideas and insights that they express have been central to my life. An inscription above the stacks of the great library in ancient Alexandria, Egypt, said, “The Place of the Cure of the Soul.” I understand that.
It is said that Americans don’t read. I question that when I see hundreds of people, including people from other towns, rummaging through the books at the sale. It’s great fun to watch them on Sunday during the Bag Sale when they can stuff grocery bags full of books for a very low price and totter around with leaning towers of books. The sale starts on Friday evening, August 23 and continues Saturday, and the Bag Sale starts at noon on Sunday. wclarke@comcast.net