Obsession: Books, or, Poetry Finds Me

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In another life books framed my days. I slept with them, dreamt about them, woke to their presence stacked by the bed and in various corners throughout the house, read them, handled them, discussed their merits with friends, co-workers, beer-drinking buddies, bartenders, customers, strangers, relatives, and even enemies. Traced my fingers slowly down their spines, identified some by odor alone, others by weight and feel. Bought, sold, cleaned, lent, skimmed, traded, gave, borrowed, collected, repaired, preserved, received. Traveled to acquire more, returned home to find still others languishing in never-opened, partially read or barely touched states. There were always too many. There were never enough.

The relationship began innocently. I’ve been an avid reader since the age of five, and over the years developed a knack for uncovering uncommon modern first editions. I’d walk into a thrift shop and spot a copy of William Kennedy’s first novel, The Ink Truck, snuggling up to Jane Fonda’s workout book, for a buck. Or at a small town antique store, something especially nice, perhaps a near-fine first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark, would leer at me from a dark shelf – $1.50. John Berryman’s Poems (New Directions, 1942) found me at a garage sale, for a quarter. Good Will yielded Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. There were others, of course. Many others.

I partnered with a few like-minded friends and opened a store, and when that didn’t work out, started my own home-based book business, which eventually expanded into a small brick-and-mortar shop, a true labor of love. And I mean labor. The forlorn space we rented was cheap and had housed for years a low-end, illicit massage parlor. Cleaning it out was, oh, shall we say interesting? I’ll never forget the furry massage table, the naked lady lamp or the various implements left behind after the joint was finally forced to close. But we hauled out the filthy carpeting, stripped and refinished the hardwood floors, fixed, painted and patched what we could, and hid what we couldn’t. It was exhausting, but well worth the toil.

My work schedule ran from Monday through Sunday, a minimum of eighty hours a week – in a seven-year period, I took off only two long weekends. It consumed me, but in the end I emerged mostly intact, a little more aware of my proclivities, of an unhealthy tendency to immerse myself wholly into an enthusiasm, to the detriment of family and friends. When we sold our store’s wares, I embraced the change; some dreams simply deplete you. But the itch remained.

Just a few weeks ago I found myself perusing an accumulation of books in a storage facility across the street from a junk shop in Llano, Texas, a small county seat an hour’s drive west of my home on the outskirts of Austin. The shop’s owner had purchased an English professor’s estate, and judging by the collection, the professor had specialized in poetry. My first thought was “I want it all,” but reason set in (I could very well imagine my wife’s reaction were I to arrive home with a trailerful of books) so I glanced over the criticism, fiction, drama, essays and biographies, and concentrated on the poetry. In the end I walked away with thirty-one books, including H.D.’s Red Roses for Bronze (Chatto & Windus, 1931), Randall Jarrell’s Little Friend, Little Friend, Elizabeth Bishop’s Collected Poems and Questions of Travel, a brace of Berrymans – His Toy, His Dream, His Rest and Homage to Mistress Bradstreet – both the U.S. and U.K. first editions, which differ – and Love & Fame. A good haul, to say the least, but one that left me only partially satisfied and contemplating a return. But I remain resolute. So far.

As I said, the itch remains…

This first appeared in April 2015.

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70 thoughts on “Obsession: Books, or, Poetry Finds Me”

  4. Enjoyed this prose outing, Bob. Especially this observation: some dreams simply deplete you. The older I get, the more I understand the shadow side of attachment, linger though it will. It is difficult to safely corral such animals; kudos to you for doing so.

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  8. I believe I know the feeling. If your travels ever take you to New York City, go to the Strand Bookstore on 13th Street and Broadway. You’ll find the largest selection of used and remaindered books anywhere in Manhattan (except the Library).

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  11. Yes. I am a bibliophile as well. When I purchased a book from an old book shop or flea market, and especially a yard sale… I got a feeling that must be shared by people that rescue animals and bring them home. lol. I don’t have near the load of books I used to… practicality won over… but I have some catches I will never let go of… thanks for sharing this wonderful point-of-view. 🙂

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  12. I, too, love me some books. I tried a kindle and a nook, but it just never took. I need to feel the paper, fold back the cover until it’s almost just one side of the page, dog ear where I left, and smell the ink. Finding the used makes it even more special of who else held those pages and read those words.

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  15. deja vu. i was recently enough reading Larry McMurtry’s “roads” and noticing he went after his own shop with a story so very similar to this. – I can’t say it enchanted me as much as John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie, but I take what moments i need and cherish them even if i’m literally and literarially a dial turner of a reader versus that annoying person switching station on the radio looking for just the ONE right song.

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  16. Enjoyed every word of this!
    Timely for me too because I am carting off another box of books that need to be released and treasured by someone else.
    And thinking of you selecting the gems from the former professor’s estate made me smile!
    I am sure that person would be smiling to see that someone valued them.
    And your book store experience was interesting to read about.
    This was my favorite line:
    “embraced the change; some dreams simply deplete you”
    Oh and one last tidbit –
    Jane Fonda?
    Ha!
    Was just remembering my first at home workout cassette in 1987 – it was Jane Fonda and it was good! Don’t recall the book though –
    Anyhow – good day O

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  24. My relationship with book ownership is similar. I’ve got twenty or thirty books waiting to be read, gathering dust on my shelves. I swear that I won’t go to the library or buy another book until I’ve run the gamut, but end up getting seduced into buying more. A friend talks about a new author, and I’m off on a prolonged tangent. My children will have to deal with my collection eventually, but my daughter is an English Lit. major. She’ll be happy to go rummaging through my piles of books to find treasures. That’s what I tell myself when I pass by a used book store and see shelves of books out on the sidewalk calling to me.

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