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. Continue Reading »
You may never have heard of her, but in the publishing world, Harriet Klausner was legendary.
Seattle.
Last Thursday, around midnight, my wife was hauled down a long, lonely corridor, knocked unconscious, and stabbed five times.
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.”
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 