This weekend I finished reading a book, the first one in a while. I enjoyed it a great deal, but it was an unusual read in that, from the book’s very first page, I felt a very real connection to it. You see, my library also includes a few stolen books.
On my “old/rare books” shelf lies an 1892 edition of The Lady of the Lake, by Sir Walter Scott. A family member—enamored of its exquisite etchings—checked it out from a library in the early ’40s and just “forgot” to return it. When it came into my possession, forty years later, it was agreed by all that returning it was unnecessary. Probably.
A few other books on my shelf have sketchy backgrounds, too. One is a Bible illustrated by Salvador Dali that I didn’t ask too many questions about, and another is a large-format book of the works Michelangelo that had been so obviously mismarked at a garage sale that paying the 50¢ asking price was nothing short of theft.
And so, when i
n the prologue to her non-fiction bestseller, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, author and journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett describes how she came into possession of a book with a less-than-pristine provenance, I felt the echoed pangs of my own guilty conscience. (more…)
You may never have heard of her, but in the publishing world, Harriet Klausner was legendary.
Autumn arrived in Seattle a few days ahead of schedule. This weekend, a low-pressure system cruised in with gusts that rattled the windows and whistled through the trees. Standing at the window, watching the maples dance, I thought to myself, “It’s a blustery day.”
It was my mother’s social ambition that taught me to love books.
The 14th century was a seriously bad time marked by The Black Death and The Hundred Years’ War. After the plague, to combat the wage inflation caused by there being 30-50% fewer folks standing around, the nobility said, “Sure, I’ll pay you twice what I used to pay you,” and then they turned around and devalued the coins they used. Thus, even though you were now paid 6 sous each day, with their value cut in half they’d only buy you 3 sous worth of goods. Complain as you might, you were powerless to change it.
I’ve been thinking about “immersion” lately. A lot. It’s infected my daily thoughts, disturbed my reading, and stymied my writing.
