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I have always loved books, their smell and heft, bindings, illustrations, and of course, the stories within. But I don’t recall the title of the first book I personally checked out of the library. I was five-years old, in first grade. It was a Friday, the book was replete with color illustrations, and the story was, perhaps, about a little bear. So long ago. But I read and reread that book all weekend, and I felt (and still feel!) the awe and wonder, mystery and power of that glorious artifact.
Nearly sixty years later, that awe has never diminished. The books behind my desk’s glass doors offer glimpses at rare beauty and yes, secrets. In front of me sits a U.S. first edition of Remy de Gourmont’s A Night in the Luxembourg (Boston, 1919), which may be an interesting relic in and of itself, but this particular volume bears the bookplate of Jun Fujita, historical figure, poet and photographer extraordinaire. Alongside it rests a much thumbed copy of The Book of Symbols, a source of great contemplation, insight and forehead slapping.
On the shelf above that a volume titled The Anthropology of Numbers, also a treasured resource, nestles just to the left of Kaleidoscope: Poems by American Negro Poets, a landmark 1967 anthology edited by Robert Hayden, the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978. Should your eyes wander down this shelf, you’ll also discover an inscribed copy of David Wevill’s Other Names for the Heart: New and Selected Poems 1964-1984, Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, and Kenkō’s Essays in Idleness, translated by Donald Keene.
Why are these books here? How have they come to be gathered in this house in Indiana, on these particular jumbled shelves? Who are the authors? What is their significance? Who knows them, feels them, understands them? What wisdoms have they endured?
Share with me your favorite books—from the volumes you’ve read time and again, to the ones you own simply because you were compelled to possess them, and those that have great significance to you, even if you’ve not read them and never will.
O at the Edges 