Another air pocket: been reading chunks of Thoreau’s Walden Pond, which I found my way to courtesy of RLS essay on him in familiar studies of men and books, a palm sized red book (cosmopolitan magazine New York, a medallion edition, whatever that means) which I picked up by chance in a charity shop last week for a quarter. I collect palm sized books because I find them very comfortable to read while I am walking. I am a small person, so my hands aren’t terribly big by any standard, but I find these old books very agreeable visually as well. I have no idea why. This one has very few paragraphs indented in it, if any.
Others I have are from the Modern Library I think. I’ll have to examine them.
I enjoy “reading out” from writers, I also enjoy the maze and circuitous route by which some books or even parts of books arrive in our lives. Often in the last year I have found books discarded on the side of the road! And sometimes it will be a title someone has mentioned in passing and eh voila there it is looking up from the pavement at me. P’haps that’s why I tend to look down a great deal these days.
Chanced upon books via writers or other books or mentions or because you tripped over it on the bus or found it cover less at a jumble sale. Post your tales in comments …..
When the libraries in Vancouver were closed because of a strike I went to thrift stores, garage sales and book stores to feed my addiction to reading. I found it was uncanny that books seem to appear to me on those shelves that were very relevant to my eclectic interests. The joy of thrifting is that searching becomes a right brain activity–books are often jumbled in a chaotic manner in spite of the little pieces of masking tape with the genres on the shelves. Finding the right book seems more of a spiritual experience than a result of a logical search. I found many of my books on wildflowers during that library strike.
I think that second hand book stores often seem to have very good karma because they hold so much residual energy from people who love books.
February 3rd, 2010 at 5:05 amYes people who love books, but writers can’t make a living if people don’t buy books.
Second hand bookshops are vital to finding work that’s out of print, or sometimes just as you say “eclectic”.
Once I was due to meet someone in a caff, she didn’t show up, went to phone her, under the phone someone had left a book on neuroscience, I took it up and began reading it. The amiga didn’t show up on that occasion, but finding that book and buying it that day ignited my, albeit minor, neuroscience reading.
Thanks Mme Bee for the lovely comments you leave..
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:00 amShould say that the caff was in a bookstore! Hence the left book by the phone etc.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:01 amLeave a Reply