Books- My Life in Chapters

Books- My Life In Chapters

Dana

“What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they’re trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?”-Seinfeld 

 

Chapter 1- The First Hit 

I don’t know when it started but I guess I could blame my Mom (parents usually are to blame for most of their children’s problems anyways). When we were younger, my Mom bought my sister and I lots of Dr. Seuss books. And I loved them. Shiny, hardback and colorful books that led me into the world of Seuss, I exited with a love of stories and a wild imagination. My Mom was strict with our books. We weren’t allowed to break the binding, or crimp or fold a page. And writing in a book??! Not in our house. Unlike many children’s well worn and often scribbled in books, my childhood library remained intact and immaculate. 

 

Chapter 2- Getting My Fix 

In elementary school I was introduced to the delightful and addicting world of the Scholastic Book Club flyer. Every few months or so, my teacher would handout a tissue thin flyer listing books for sale. The second I got the flyer I began circling books I was interested in. Feverishly, I scanned the flyer looking for books that caught my eye. I’ve never understood the cliche, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ because thats all I’ve ever done. It was the bright, beautifully illustrated books that would catch my attention first. Second was the tiny blurb next to the book that offered a short one sentence summary. 

I’d carry the flyer home, and show my Mom all the books I wanted. “Pleassseeee,” I’d beg. She’d limit my purchases to one or two, maybe three depending on the price. And then it was a waiting game. I don’t know if anyone in my class was as enthusiastic about the book orders as I was, I’d constantly remind my teacher that the flyers were due. Then I’d pester her for the next few weeks, waiting for the day they were in. The worst part was my teachers would never open the box of books until the end of the day, knowing we’d be too distracted by the books. So the box would sit on the teachers desk at the front of the room. I’ve never had much patience, and the prospects of having my new books within a few short hours distracted me so much. Just thinking of it now, I get antsy remembering my books in the box, waiting for me! 

 

Chapter 3- Stronger Stuff 

I got my first copy of The Catcher in The Rye in seventh grade. My teacher Mr. Kellogg said I needed to read it. So when I had the chance I visited a bookstore to find the book . 

I wasn’t immediately attracted to the book, it was all white with just a stripe of colors in the left hand corner. But Mr. Kellogg was my favorite teacher and so I took him at his word and bought the book, despite its plain appearance. 

Once I started it, I was held captive by Holden. I could’ve read it at one sitting but paced myself wanting to savor the book. I began to regard everyone around me as a phony, goddam lousy phonies. 

Catcher was so engrossing that I wanted more and more. I began to read more than ever before. In many ways books became real friends to me. I lived vicariously through them all— I watched Seymour Glass kill himself, I fought He-who-shall-not-be-named alongside Harry, used the subtle knife with Lyra, solved a million mysteries with Nancy and discovered things like why a caged bird sings. 

Around this time, I found Little Ships while I was walking home from school one day. I saw a box next to a trashcan labeled FREE. I peered into the box and saw nothing but junk. I was hopeful to find something worthy of Antiques Roadshow, so I rummaged through the box and among the junk I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting or needing was a book. A book! A book is something to be treasured and admired not cast aside on a curb. I picked the book and slid it into my backpack, feeling like I had won some beautiful little prize. 

When I got home I ran into my room with my new book. It was a total mess: the spine was loose and crumbling, and the edges were well worn. But the color was still a pretty red hue with the title embossed in gold writing. It was published in 1925 and there was an inscription on the inside: “Merry Christmas to Grandma Harrington -Jack and James.” The writing was so beautiful that I imagined Jack and James giving this book to their Grandmother. 

I was sure it was going to be worth thousands. “A first edition!- so rare!- and you say you got it for free?!” I imagined the appraiser would say. I eagerly googled the author and title but found it was worth a whopping 3.99 or so on eBay (and considering mines condition probably less). But I loved it anyways. I put it on my bookshelf with all my books. 

 

Chapter 4- Dealing

With Little Ships I realized that books didn’t have to be brand-new to gain my admiration. I discovered the Salvation Army and another local thrift store, the PSW which is a great local thrift store that employs mentally disabled adults. 

Each visit was like a treasure hunt, and all I needed was a few minutes and a couple bucks. Both thrift stores had their books priced at just 25 cents for a paperback and fifty cents for a hardcover. It became my mission in life to find treasures. I inspected them with strict scrutiny, still wanting to buy only books in as best condition as I could find. 

While at community college I amassed a collection of textbooks. I was sure I needed to keep them in case I ever need to research something. But then a friend told me I could sell them online. For Cash? I was intrigued being a cash-strapped college student I decided to list my books for sale. Soon I had sold all of my textbooks and had made some money. 

   I loved selling them and wished I had more to sell. I looked at library, my precious books. My book shelves were crowded, overfilled with books from when I was a kid. Did I really need all my old Nancy Drews? And so I made the decision to sell some of my childhood library away. It made me sad to get rid of books I had loved so much when I was younger. But that subsided when a woman from Texas sent me an email saying how much her granddaughter loved the books she had bought from me.

I realized that the thrift stores I loved so much were gold mines filled with potential- not just for my own consumption- but books I could sell online. A lucrative business began- I named it, “The Second Chapter,” after all I was giving new life to second hand books. It was more of a hobby than anything else. I’d spend a Saturday morning looking for books, then bring them home and clean them up before posting them for sale. I could sell them on Amazon for somewhere between 5-15 bucks, a pretty good money maker considering I paid no more than fifty cents.

I would add a personal touch to each book before I sent them out into different parts of America, something my Mom never let me as a kid. I bought a stamp and stamped the second page of each book with my name. When thrifting, I always love coming across books that already have a name in it. I wonder who this person is or was. And so I stamp them with my name, hoping someone will wonder who the person behind my name is too. 

 

Chapter 5- Caught up 

I am always looking for books for my personal library too. Once, I was walking through the PSW, a worker pushed a grocery cart into the book area. It was loaded to the top with books needing to be sorted and organized. I turned away, deciding it was too much of a mess to search through the cart. As I turned my head, something caught my eye- a mint green book, did that say Zelda??! It was at the very bottom of the cart, but that didn’t matter to me anymore and I emptied half the cart to reach the book. It was Zelda! Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott and infamous flapper of the 1920s. I had been craving a story about her. Years prior I had fallen in love with the works of Fitzgerald, specifically his short stories. And there was Zelda! 

And then theres my Catcher complex. Holden always seems to find me. I guess its lasting popularity among teens means it is an inevitable find at thrift stores. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but sometimes it feels like the universe places the books I want right there in the thrift store for me to find. I can never leave Holden behind. No matter the condition of The Catcher In The Rye, I feel an overwhelming need to rescue it. 

 Below my bed is a cardboard box filled with “Catchers”. I don’t know if I can stop buying them. But I know I can’t leave them there, in a musty thrift store. I have more than ten copies of the book. I can’t really sell them online because the condition of some of them isn’t great. I hope to find a home for these books, my shelves are too full to have them on display. 

 

Chapter 6- The Next Chapter

I got a Kindle for Christmas.

It was the only thing on my list, a present I surely needed. What self-respecting 21st century reader didn’t have a Kindle? It’s a beautiful, streamlined piece of technology.  But I am missing something. 

I don’t get the high of anticipation of buying or the thrill of the hunt as I did before, scavenging a thrift stores for books. All the books I could possibly want are all there. I can find them in a few seconds with just a few clicks. I can download almost much anything in less than sixty-seconds. 

And then there’s the whole judging a book by its cover thing I’m missing now too. I don’t get to pick books based on their beautiful cover. They all look the same once on my Kindle, grey. Many of my thrift store buys are based more on the artwork then the content. To me, a new book is a new opportunity and a promise. An opportunity to live vicariously through the story, a promise of learning something new— that living through the books, we can learn something about ourselves and people in general. 

I guess my Kindle does that in its own way, but I have lost that which I have come to adore in my used book finds, individuality and the adventure of the find. I can pick up a book in a my library and remember when and where I found it, sometimes they have a name scrawled inside of its previous owner. My ragtag library is eclectic and is so much more personal than my Kindle could ever be. 

I still visit thrift stores, pacing the shelves for a book that calls out to me, “Buy ME.” My online sales have slumped— maybe it’s the economy, maybe the Kindle and other electronic devices are killing the life of physical books. When I make a sale I smile, happy I can share my finds with someone else who will appreciate the beauty of a book.