Bibliographic anecdote.
Jan. 6th, 2011 11:15 pmI took a bit of a walk yesterday when I was done at the library - not a big one, just from one subway station to another aboveground. It was about an hour until nightfall so there was still plenty of light coming down instead of coming up. I think that might be one of the best times in the city to be out and about. Just before it shifts over into night, that little bit of dusk.
The Rockefeller Christmas Tree was still up, and I heard someone saying they took it down today, so it's quite possible they were waiting for the Epiphany. I was more impressed by the Lego store right next to it and the dragon inside the window, and the fact that the wicker angels with trumpets stationed around the plaza weren't actually holding their instruments.
A half-block from the subway station I passed by a used bookstore, and I'm sure you know where this is going, but there's no way I can fight my nature like that, so in I went. I sniffed around a bit, checking out the old prints and posters and spending time looking at books I recognized in the children's section when I found something that made me pay attention. It wasn't the book itself - a nice hardcover edition of Swallows and Amazons - that did it so much as it was where the book had come from. Which was San Francisco. There was a tiny sticker on the inside front cover that said it was from Books Inc. Even though it wasn't from a Books Inc. I've been to, but one that closed a long time ago, I felt this weird sensation of something like settling, or balance, something like a heavy coat on my shoulders that gave me a little secret joy. That this came from where I did, or so very nearly as to count, and I'd still found it. Almost a treasure hunt, or meeting someone from your country overseas on vacation, or finding someone from your hometown across the country. Which it might well have been.
I didn't know what to do aside from stand there and smile, so I put it back and left, still smiling. I might well go back and buy it, since it's a good book to have around anyway for comfort reading. And maybe I should - it seems fitting that I should be the one to bring it home.
The Rockefeller Christmas Tree was still up, and I heard someone saying they took it down today, so it's quite possible they were waiting for the Epiphany. I was more impressed by the Lego store right next to it and the dragon inside the window, and the fact that the wicker angels with trumpets stationed around the plaza weren't actually holding their instruments.
A half-block from the subway station I passed by a used bookstore, and I'm sure you know where this is going, but there's no way I can fight my nature like that, so in I went. I sniffed around a bit, checking out the old prints and posters and spending time looking at books I recognized in the children's section when I found something that made me pay attention. It wasn't the book itself - a nice hardcover edition of Swallows and Amazons - that did it so much as it was where the book had come from. Which was San Francisco. There was a tiny sticker on the inside front cover that said it was from Books Inc. Even though it wasn't from a Books Inc. I've been to, but one that closed a long time ago, I felt this weird sensation of something like settling, or balance, something like a heavy coat on my shoulders that gave me a little secret joy. That this came from where I did, or so very nearly as to count, and I'd still found it. Almost a treasure hunt, or meeting someone from your country overseas on vacation, or finding someone from your hometown across the country. Which it might well have been.
I didn't know what to do aside from stand there and smile, so I put it back and left, still smiling. I might well go back and buy it, since it's a good book to have around anyway for comfort reading. And maybe I should - it seems fitting that I should be the one to bring it home.
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