MarysLibrary

The Bibliomidas Touch

Not to brag or anything, but lately every book I touch turns to gold. We all go through periods when there is nothing worth reading in our 4,000-book library. This is kind of the opposite, where we discover all sorts of treasures on our shelves that we hadn't realized where there.

I've also been playing the library version, Serendipity. I walk along the shelves and idy pick out a book because the author's name is familiar (but not too familiar), I like the cover picture, I can remember vaguely hearing about the book, or - and this is the most likely to produce a winner -- the book has been rebound.

Libraries don't rebind much any more as the books that fall apart tend to be ephemeral in value and it has become more costly to rebind than to buy a fresh copy of the now-tattered book. So the books whose spines are a plain dull brown, blue, or green buckram tend be older (some as old as from the 40s or 50s), were at one time popular (or they wouldn't have needed rebinding), and were considered by the librarians to be of sufficient value to justify the expense of rebinding them.

This hot streak I'm on, combined with the opening of the Spokane Symphony season (Strauss' Alpensinfonie, anyone?), has led me to ignore my blog. I'll start soon talking about these delightful books I've been reading lately but I want to finish a couple more of them first. Stay tuned.

Serendipity

WARNING: Cat Book Discussed Below

Once in a while I like to pull a book from the shelves of the library or a book store or occasionally a friend's bookshelf at not-quite random just to see what turns up.

What turned up recently was We Are the Cat: Life Through the Eyes of the Royal Feline (2006) by Terry Bain, who wrote the book in spite of his cat's wishes otherwise.

Cat books, like books about Antarctic explorers and time travel, are either/or propositions. Either you can't get enough of them or you wouldn't read one on a bet.

This is such a quintessential Cat Book that it will positively thrill the cat book crowd. The rest of you can go back to Shackelton's autobiography.

Their cat describes the Bain family (known to their cat as The Laps), the purpose of yarn (not knitting), the significance of grooming (very significant), the delights of various foods (kibble, grass, houseplants), and the best places to sleep (in the sun, on the computer.)

It's an altogether charming book and one that has the additional appeal for me that it's written by a Lap from Spokane.

Serendipity

Once in a while I like to pull a book from the shelves of the library or a bookstore or a friend's bookshelf at not-quite random just to see what turns up.

This practice stems from the time I was looking for something in the biography section of the Alexandria public library when a book fell on my head. Someone on the other side of the shelf had put a book back and pushed this book through I suppose.

From whatever source it came, the book intrigued me and I took it home and read it. And loved it. It was Here at the New Yorker (1975) by Brendan Gill.

And so from time to time I walk along in the stacks with my glasses off so I can’t see the titles and pick a book off the shelf. Sometimes it goes right back but sometimes I take it home and give it a go. More than half the time it’s a dud, but once in a while it’s a Hope Diamond of a book.

I keep lengthy and lengthening lists of Books To Be Read, through which I slowly work my way. I think of this not-quite random book selection as a sort of World Series Wild Card of the book world and I recommend it, especially to the more organized and methodical of you.