Books

Today's NY Times made reference to a story in Politico about a company that sells books by the foot or yard.  This company will put together a nice library based on color of books, subject, size etc. and ship it to you lock, stock and barrel. Originally a company built around providing walls of books for show houses or hotel lobbies, the company has exploded some 40% since the pandemic started.  Why? Because people want good backgrounds - wait for it - for their zoom calls.

Yea.  Zoom calls.  

We've all seen the backgrounds of the talking heads on tv.  Usually they have libraries behind them.  If they've written a book, there might be multiple copies visible; at least one of them stands upright with the cover facing the camera.  I thought those were real libraries.  Turns out they might be rent-a-libraries according to this company. Really. People are buying whole libraries just to look good on zoom. 2020, we love ya...

The story got me thinking about books and my library.  Book collecting has been a passion of mine for my entire adult life.  I say adult life because before I went to college the only book I had read was The Sandy Koufax Story. And even for that book report. I probably used Cliff Notes. Anyway, the NY Times story made me wonder how many books are in my library to look good?  I was happy to conclude that except for War and Peace, which I've never read and will never read, the rest of the books are there because I read them or intend to read them. 

Of course, in today's world it pains me to 'write this out loud' but I also have a Kindle, and I do read many books on it.  At last count I have 302 books on this, my third Kindle.  The pain comes from admitting those 302 books aren't actual books, as in hardcover, paper in the middle, ink on the page-books.

I'm guessing you can't buy Kindles by the foot or yard.

Of course, for many of the books I have on Kindle, I also have the hard cover book too.  I just finished Ken Follett's latest (not going to win a Pulitzer) which I have both in hard cover and on Kindle. I justify doing this because when home I like to sit in my library and read the book-book. But I also never go anywhere without the Kindle because if I'm stuck somewhere or just want to go to Starbucks for a cup of coffee and to read, well, I need to have something to read that isn't a 900 page 'door stopper'. Thus, the Kindle.

My library has several thousand books in it. Most are on shelves, some are in boxes upstairs in the attic or under the bookshelves, maybe tucked in corners, or in my dresser, or on the floor of my office.

Recently, I purged the bookshelves and rid myself of some of the worst of them, many of the wastes of paper being about religion, ('what possessed me to buy this crap?' I kept mumbling to myself and my beautiful wife Anna, as I tossed another one into a box destined down the street to the Blossom & Bloom thrift shop).  I was shocked at how many of the books looked un-read. Untouched really. This comes from a decision many years ago to not struggle through poorly written books. Really, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever take the time to read the biography of the founder of Mother Mary of the Rockies Catholic School, of Boise Idaho, Sister Mary Discipline. Life is too short. Much too short.

I also only buy hard cover books. It's not an exclusive rule, but I prefer them to paperback.  As soon as I get home with the hard cover book I take the dust jacket off, then store it away somewhere. Without the dustjacket my library looks like something from a PBS special about an English pastor. Our whole house, which we call The Hermitage, is decorated in 'early country cottage' so the books need to be brown and black and gray;  not adorned with bright colors that come from a dust jacket. Jesus, who wants to stare at a picture of Leo Tolstoy?  

All of the sets are together, and some are in order by topic, but others are placed all around so if I decide to read something I haven't read in a while, I have to look for it. I am currently in a snit because I can't find my copy of The Barchester Chronicles. It's here somewhere, I'm sure. It's not the kind of book people borrow or you give as a gift, so I'm sure I still have it. It will turn up some day.

My children have heard from me a thousand times not to get rid of any book after I die without looking inside it.  Many, I remind them, are signed, some by authors you wouldn't expect. Like Chaim Potok. I believe Potok to be one of the world's great story tellers, and for a period of about three years I immersed myself into the Hasidic world that he wrote about. My library of Potok and the other great author on Hasidism, Isaac Beshevis Singer, rivals that of the local rabbi's, I would guess. I also love throwing around Yiddish words I learned in those books like spilkus and bupkes and Tubishvat.  My second mother, Miriam Jackson, used to call me 'vishtunkanah' which she said meant 'stinky' in Yiddish. I don't know if that is a real Yiddish word, but it is fun to say.  Try it.  Vish - tun - kin - ah.

One time in Atlanta Potok gave a lecture at a local synagogue. I attended, really excited to meet one of my literary heroes. His lecture was about anti-Semitism. He said (I remember this like it was yesterday), 'if the Christian Church would spend as much time fighting anti-Semitism as it did to foster it, it would end it in a heartbeat.'  I realized he was absolutely right, of course. Feelings of guilt hit me, as he intended, I guess. I didn't feel offended by the revelation.

I went up to him after the lecture and asked him to sign my copy of The Chosen and told him I was Christian. He said 'oh you're the one,' as we laughed together. My guess is my kids would not expect me to have a signed Potok, thus the admonition to look into every book before giving it to the thrift shop.

Some years later I was at a Monticello event and the host was Jan Karon, the author of a series of light, cheesy, very religious books about a small town and priest in North Carolina. (What possessed me to buy this crap?) I loved those books (the early ones, don't waste your time on the later stuff) because they offered escape; I knew all would turn out ok, and Father Kavanaugh would save the day. With his trusty dog Barnabas at his side and devoted wife Cynthia cheering him on, Father Tim would make everything right. The predictable plots of these books were comforting to me, in some way.

During her welcome to the audience she said something like 'I know men don't read my books.' Later, when I went to introduce myself, I said to her, 'I read all your books.' She said, 'oh, you're the one.'

Potok and Karon couldn't be more different. An Orthodox rabbi in kippa, tzitzit, (Look it up. Do I have to do all the work here?) and three piece suit and a white bread southern woman in Yves St. Laurent.  Yet they had the same response. - 'Oh, you're the one.'  I'm not sure what part of my personality or look evokes that comment.

There are also first editions that need to be guarded in my library. Henry David Thoreau is a big hero of mine. (Did you figure that out considering the name of this blog?) Many years back, while living in Boston, I used to go back and forth to Concord on weekends just to be in the aura of Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, Channing. (How did all those geniuses end up in the same small town?) Anyway, each trip would result in something else by or about Thoreau coming home with me.  

After getting a bonus check once I splurged on a first edition set of Thoreau's journals. I love those books, because they are the kind that you can just pull one off the shelf and lose yourself for several hours in 19th century Thoreau-land. Oh, I know I could get it on Kindle for $9.99 rather than buy the first editions for thousands, but it's just not the same thing.

There is a tactile part of reading that comes from holding a book, a hard cover book. The hands almost as important as the eyes. Turning the pages, helping you go from one thought to another, or to a new thought expressed by the author, or maybe in suspense wondering what happens on the next page. The hands and fingers get you there. No way you can get that from an e-reader.

Several books in the library are by friends of mine. Two very successful authors, Marty Appel, who writes sports and used to be the PR guy for the Yankees during the Mantle/Berra/Ford/Hangover era, has signed several of his. Marty and I met in Greenburg New York where he lived and I was the Commissioner of Parks and Recreation. His nonfiction baseball books read like novels. Being a kid from New York in the 50s and 60s, I can relate and reading his books return me to my childhood where New York ruled baseball with three teams. And your entire identification revolved around which team you rooted for: Giants? Dodgers? Yankees?  Part of my library includes the leather bound 27 best baseball books ever written. Marty has two of them.

The second is Gary Pomerantz, another very successful author who sends me his books occasionally, each with some affectionate comment on the signature page. His book on Atlanta emerging from Jim Crow is still the best book ever on that subject. Gary and I have known each other for some 60 years. We met at the day camp his uncle owned and where I was a counselor and he a camper. I spent each summer there, the least qualified person on the planet to be in charge of the safety of your child. My kids would probably remember Gary and thus be careful about giving his books away. When I read his books another part of my childhood, that day camp, returns, giving the reading double meaning for me.

I like having books written by people I know.  

Including me.  

Like the folks on their zoom calls, I make sure my books are prominently displayed among the others, hoping someone looking at the library will say 'hey! this one is by you!'  Authors never shy away from recognition, even if it's just in our living room. Oh, and authors still thrill, as I did, the first time they wander into a Barnes & Noble (or hopefully some smaller independent bookstore) and casually make their way into the section dedicated to the topic they have written about and just accidentally, of course, find their own book. The thrill of seeing your own book for the first time on the shelves of a store, can't be described. Marty and Gary, of course, occupy a lot more shelf space than I do.

Someday soon I'm going to attack the attic and see what is up there. I haven't been up there since I moved here in 2009, so who knows. Will I find The Barchester Chronicles packed in behind the mouse droppings? Where in heaven's name is my copy of Les Misérables that mysteriously has disappeared? Maybe up there, tucked in among the boxes of tax returns from 1979?

There is comfort in knowing these books are up there somewhere, even if the squirrels have eaten them.  

The other advantage I have, as far as reading is concerned, is I have a terrible memory...as in I can't remember what I had for breakfast, terrible memory. That means great books I have enjoyed, like David McCullough's John Adams, I can read again after about five years, because I won't remember a word of it. It's like getting a new book without having to buy it. When I saw McCullough at another event some years back and told him that book was the best book I ever read, I could tell he was genuinely touched, almost teary-eyed. It was a nice encounter.  

I was just glad he didn't say 'oh, you're the one.' 

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  And if you want me to stop sending you these alerts, the email works for that too.  Though if you do that I will remove your books from my library.