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Shall I compare thee…In Praise of Ex-library books

They are the ugly stepchildren of the used book business, at best forgotten, but more frequently maligned, cursed, and banned. They are ex-library books and I love them. Let’s face it, anyone can love a crisp, unblemished, jacketed copy of The Sound and the Fury or a lovely Through the Looking Glass in a Riviere binding. There’s no effort there - to truly love a book, you have to see past its faults, and if there’s one thing that ex-library books have, it’s faults: Spine labels, glued on jackets, endpapers excised by a librarian’s ragged letter opener, glue marks, doodles in felt tip marker throughout chapter 3, masking tape repairs to hinges; if you can imagine a problem, I’ve seen a library book with it - and some others.

So what’s to love? For one, the price. Will all those haters out there, nothing is less dear than an ex-library book. There’s also comparatively little competition, and the knowledge that your capacity to love the unlovable makes you a better person. Don’t forget those horrible library bindings - everyone just passes over those, and you might find a nice 1807 First American edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson inside:

So, to express my great affection for these lost and picked over detritus of the used book world, I’ve written a sonnet in their honor. You might notice that in lieu of some iambs (short long) there is the occasional trochee (long short) and maybe even a dactyl or an anapest here or there (which might account for the 11 syllable line). I would like to state, for the record, that these are all intentional and I used them to mirror the imperfections of my subject in the imperfect meter of my verse. Really.

Shall I compare thee to an unread text?
Thou art less lovely but more affordable
Rough hands withdraw them not nor their pages vex
Jackets pristine, their flaws ignorable
An unread book is like a door unope’d
No trips of fancy in its pages had
And worse yet if its pages be uncoup’d
It might as be a rock, a hole, a shad
But thy glittering jacket will not fade
Nor will you be remaindered, forgotten
But taken home by me, my dollar paid
Not treasured or packed with care in cotton
But unlocked and freed from chains academe
Unlocked again a book, a hope, a meme.

Here’s an ex-library Radices Sanscritae for the road, 1827, Berlin.

—

Post by: Tom Nealon

Pazzo Books
4268 Washington St.
Roslindale, MA 02131
pazzobooks.com
617-323-2919

So it's official - we're moving to Texas. My husband accepted a job in Austin and just put in his two weeks this past Monday. It's such a strange feeling. We had a few weeks of anticipation and mild uncertainty and now, suddenly we're in the thick of preparations. We're out of LA in exactly two weeks, so it's going to be quite a whirlwind. I'm really excited to be moving - trying out a new city in a different part of the country, but the moving itself can be such a dreaded experience. We had a pretty horrid experience six years ago when we relocated from NY to LA and I'm not at all eager to repeat it. Fortunately, I have a bit more time to do better research on moving companies and the like this time around, so hopefully it will be a somewhat better situation. We shall see...

I've never been to Austin myself, but every one we've spoken to seems to really like it, so I have high hopes that we will too. The cost of living is very attractive and I hear it's quite green and boasts spectacular thunderstorms. I so miss thunderstorms...

Here's a sketch a did last week:
I've had a thumbnail of this idea waiting around in my sketchbook for years, so I'm glad to finally have a chance to tackle it. I'm not sure where the idea for it came from - instruments as boats just seems like a neat idea to me. I've got a color study finished for it, but I have a feeling I'm not going to get to touch it again for a while, since my current job is now 'moving coordinator.'

So as we're preparing to move, going through our possessions and trying to figure out what we can do without, we managed to gather up a few stacks of books that we were willing to part with - a lot of them duplicates that we both had before we got married. I remembered a small used bookstore right around the corner from us, that I'd walked past many times, but never really ventured into before. So I headed over there, arms full of books. It's one of these places I wish I'd discovered sooner - a really nice store with good selection and the owner's just nice as can be. They even had a copy of Castles by Alan Lee - quite a find! I love the big bookstores, Borders, B&N as much as anybody, but there's something to be said for the charm of the smaller independent bookstore. So, if you happen to be passing through Canoga Park, stop in and see what you can find - address is on their website: www.nextchapterbooks.com.

Also, I mentioned sculptor Vicki Banks' beautiful animal sculptures in a previous post - seems she does indeed have a website: http://www.vulturesculpture.com/

It's time for me to dive back into the madness of moving - many phone calls to make. Anybody know a good pet-friendly hotel in Austin by chance?