The other day I had to go get a new battery for the lawn mower, so naturally I ended up at the local Goodwill buying books. Got some good stuff; non-fiction ranging from bios of Lindbergh and Teddy Roosevelt, to a book on Gurkhas, something about Mallory and Everest, and one about Ernest Shackelton’s Arctic Expedition. Also Ishi in Two Worlds, about the last Yahi Indian who came down out of the hills one day in 1911. Then there was a copy of Simon Winchester’s excellent The Professor and the Madman to replace the one I sold a few years ago. It’s a great story about one of the original contributors of the Oxford English Dictionary, who just so happened to be institutionalized. Highly recommended.
But my big find in non-fiction was a copy of a book I’ve wanted for a while, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, one of those inspirational writing books people are always talking about. I’ll be sure to mention how I like it. Top prize in the weird category goes to Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, a New York Times Bestseller, which at first I thought was satire. Seems it isn’t, but certainly looks interesting nonetheless.
And then there was fiction. I like to find better copies of books I own as replacements when I can, and I did that with two by Asimov: The Foundation Trilogy and I, Robot (my prior copy of which really ought to be tossed in the trash). I was pleased to find that Spider Robinson Heinlein novel I’ve been hearing about, Variable Star, too. I grabbed copies of two lit-fic novels that looked interesting, Burroughs Running With Scissors and Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, the later of which I bought almost purely on the virtue of it’s title alone, which references one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes tales, ‘Silver Blaze.’
I nabbed some interesting historicals as well. Justinian, by H.N. Turteltaub (Harry Turtledove) will go nicely with a group of books I’m amassing on Byzantium and plan to get to his summer. And Patrick Rambaud’s The Battle, based on notes for a planned novel by Balzac, focuses on Napolean’s defeat at the Battle of Essling. And I finally picked up a decent copy of Gore Vidal’s Burr, which I’ve heard great things about and am eager to read, despite liking neither Mr. Vidal or Mr. Burr.
But the capper on the whole thing was finding a copy of Joyce’s Ulysses. Now, I don’t know exactly when I plan to get to reading it, but surely I have less excuse now than before. But the real reason I dub this copy of Ulysses as the capper to my buying expedition is the laugh I got when I found the bookmark inside. Of course, one expects to find a bookmark still in Ulysses, one of those books not often started and even more rarely finished, but I had to chuckle a bit when this most formidable and intimidating of books was marked, on page 15, by a ticket stub to The Phantom Menace.
I defy anyone to have this kind of experience online — I hadn’t even heard of a third of these books before I saw them on the shelf.
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I bought a second-hand copy of Olivia Manning’s The Levant Trilogy last year, and when I got round to reading it recently I found a bookmark in it. The bookmark is a Penguin bookmark, advertising new titles… for the month of February 1974. That bookmark is older than many of my friends.
Finding bookmarks is great (I blogged about that not too long ago at Black Gate, actually, which you can read here), they can be real time capsules. Some of my favorites are movie stubs and airplane or bus tickets, but old photographs have to be the strangest as they have you looking at some stranger over a gulf of decades.
Finding all this stuff sort of gives you a sense of the enormity of the mundane, all the billions of things going on in all our lives that just end up as the detritus of time.
Hey, Bill! I appreciated you before this post but now I love you. You’ve mention books I adore: Winchester’s Mad Man, Ishi, Bird by Bird, Burr!!!
And omg, Foundation!!!
Keep an eye out for Robots of Dawn, The Man who Loved China, Myra…
Thanks for the love, Gay. I’ve read a few others by Winchester — his other OED book is also very good — but I hadn’t heard of the Man Who Loved China. Looks great, I’m going to order a copy today. Have you read Krakatoa? I have that one in my TBR pile.
Once I’ve read some of those others I’ll be posting my opinions — I’m thinking of doing a monthly ‘reading roundup’ post covering what I’ve read in the last month.
Very cool. Winchester delivers. Haven’t read Krackatoa but I want to. Saw him on TV on a History Channel explore of the island. All this armageddon stuff better not happen until I’ve read everything I want to read!!!!
Had a similar experience when I picked up a copy of Dhalgren from a used bookstore. A disturbing read for all its fractured layers and graphic sex, and one made even more so by the pages themselves, which were infused with a strong and pleasant perfume that might have been there thirty years, and yet invited me all the same to pull the book in closer.
I think the only smells I’ve had on used books have been of the uninviting kind.
Totally unrelated, but this reminded me of an amusing encounter with detritus…out on a walk a while back, I came to a little pagoda thing and decided to check it out. Strewn about within were:
1) a dozen empty cans of Schaffer beer
2) 2 empty bottles of Robitussin
3) 1 condom (unopened)
I feel like one of those CSI guys! But the item that really sealed the narrative I only glanced on my way out. Under a bench, a small pink piece of paper. You guessed it – a detention slip! Perfect.
Ever listen to David Byrne’s solo stuff? He dwells on notions of the mundane and the sublime, almost ascribing mystical properties to the overlooked and unimportant elements of our lives.
I’m guessing after you’ve downed the beer and the Robo, you’re in no condition to use the condom.
I haven’t listened to Byrne’s stuff, but I totally understand how all those minor events and details should have a near-mystical significance — after all, they are those parts of ourselves most often forgotten (and hence mysterious) and least connected with the cause-effect narrative we construct to understand our lives.