The Book Shelf: Where Books Fall Open

Where Books Fall Open

From our earliest days together Dee and I have haunted bookstores . . . actually some of them are haunted, they say. Ghosts coax us into cozy shops, overflowing with books stacked on stools, or piled in towers on too-small tables.

Oma in Heaven

"Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are those who need books as wildly as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the book to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to arrange on their shelves, to place by their bedside." —Robertson Davies

Do you like to buy books? There's a wonderful shopping list by the author Italo Calvino— (I'm paraphrasing and editing because it's too long for a blog.) See if you recognize your bookstore habits:

In the shop window you identify the cover with the title you're looking for. You force your way through the shop, past the barricade of Books You Haven't Read, but you're not intimidated. You know that among them are:

1. Books You Needn't Read,
2. Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading,
3. Books You'd Read If You Had More Time. You bypass them, and move into the
   
4. Books You Mean To Read,
   
5. Books You'll Read When They Come Out In Paperback section, and bump into the
   
6. Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You've Read Them,
   
7. Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case and
   
8. Books You Ought To Get Now So You Can Read Them Next Summer. Suddenly you see
   
9. Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and
   
10. Books You've Always Pretended to Have Read And Now It's Time To Really Read Them.
    

Tattered Cover Bookstore, Denver, CO

Is there a more pleasant place than a room full of books?"
—Erik Christian Haugaard

Where Books Fall Open is a book about books. It's a collection of essays and poems about writing and reading by well known authors, illustrated with beautiful paintings by Bascove. I discovered it in a Sun Valley bookstore and devoured it in the snack bar, right along with the fresh peanut butter cookies. After only two weeks, I've already re-read it. Give it to your favorite bookworm.

I search shelves of independent bookstores, looking for gems like this that aren't always available in the giant chains. It's fun to shop where the owners are familiar with their titles, and offer extraordinary books that didn't make it onto the best-seller list. Remember You've Got Mail?

Opa Lost in Words

Our Friday-night dates start with a fabulous meal somewhere, and the idea of going to a movie after. Most of the time we skip the movie, and visit a book nook instead, then go home early to read our new purchases. Many nights one of us has started a book, and found the other in the middle of it the next morning. Helen MacInnes was one of the first authors we shared, then Robert Ludlum, and Frederick Forsythe.

Searching out bookstores in faraway places and spending hours in little cubby holes, between the covers of old books, is a favorite pastime when we travel, too. Our itineraries are often arranged around visits to bookstores, and I try to choose a hotel within walking distance of a good one. Some discoveries are:

1. The Mysterious Bookstore, NYC
2. Chapters Bookstore, Toronto
3. Indigo Bookstore, Ottawa
4. Mystery Books, Washington, DC
5. Get Lost Travel Books, San Francisco
6. Howell's Bookstore, San Francisco
7. Shakespeare and Company, Paris
8. Galignani, Paris
9. Books of Wonder, NYC
10. Hatchards, London
11. The Tattered Cover, Denver
12. The Bookbarn, West Chester, PA
13. Banff Avenue Bookstore, Banff
14. White Rose Books, Thirsk, Yorkshire
15. Waterstone's Bookstore, York England

The Bookworm, by Carl Spitzweg

"Some people say living is the thing. I prefer books."
—A Bookworm

Homework: Do any or all, or be inspired.

~Choose a type of book from the list above, and make your own list of five titles that fit the category.

~Describe the perfect bookstore. Prompt: "It looked so inviting. There were_____, with lots of _____. . . "

~Suggest or review a book we might not have heard about.


Next Week: Kid's Books

*If you do any part of the assignment on your blog, link it back to TravelinOma. And please leave a comment here with a link to your blog as part of our class discussion. I'll be keeping track, and spot checking your work, giving points for participation. You can grade your own work, based on your individual progress. (A for Accomplishment, B for Basic Effort, C for Class Comments, D for thinking this post is Dumb, and F for Failure to Communicate.)