Nothing beats getting lost among the dusty shelves of a used bookstore. When the bookstore moves its shelves outside with breeze blowing, and the early signs of Boston spring, the experience reminisces “the best of times.”
Last week, Roger and I spent St. Patrick’s Day week in Boston meandering down streets, taking in an art museum, playing with our sweet grand dog, and generally enjoying the city and our kids. In the street meandering portion of the trip, we came across a used bookstore that where they push rolling carts outside for bargain basement prices. We were hooked before our first jay-walking step.
Funny, how personalities emerge when entering a book store; a group of people can walk in together, and possibly shop together elsewhere, but entering the world of adventure on paper, they splinter and gravitate to where their imaginations and hearts take them. Some stop and ponder non- fiction, others science fiction and fantasy literature, best sellers, travel books - the possibilities seem endless.
In a new book store, or an online store, I will look over the best sellers list before jutting off to other pursuits, but in a dusty, bargain-bin cornucopia of possibilities, I don’t know where to start. I saw a mobile cart of poetry. Three dollars for a collection of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called my name. Then, my eyes drew toward a Tennessee Williams Play collection, and as my sights grazed across the discarded Norton’s Anthologies, I stopped at an old book of Emerson’s poetry and pulled it off the shelf for a longing look.
Brushing my fingers across the books, I pictured the hands that have held them over the years. My imagination drifted to students who stayed up in wee hours reading Homer’s Odyssey from the Norton’s before an early morning test; I thought of literature shelved in libraries of the stately homes on cobbled streets near Boston Commons, where on a sleepless night, their owners may have brought them down from a shelf to peruse the pages and give their minds a place to rest from life’s troubles.
As Elise delighted in finding a 1950s copy of Margaret Mitchell’s classic Gone with the Wind, I encountered the travel section and continued to imagine the adventures Bostonians created and experienced after consulting these books. We did have a full day of touring the city before returning to Elise’s apartment that evening, so we yielded to the temptation of purchasing the great bargains and ultimate finds that we would have to schlep in our bags all day.
I did buy a 1940s edition of a story about the Wright Brothers for my sister, Joy, a Wright Brothers enthusiast. Elise decided she would worry about carrying heavy things another day and bought Gone with the Wind.
Soon afterward, we reluctantly abandoned the outdoor used book store nestled among the historic buildings in the city that holds so much of our country’s story. We did not buy all that we wanted to buy, and walked on with a budding spring day ahead, but as we did, we discussed the books we saw. We spoke of the poetry, talked about some of the differences in movies from books. As we walked, Elise opened the international cookbook she picked up for Scott and mentioned how much he would enjoy the recipes.
Even though we wander in different directions among the shelves, books bring us together. Even the jackets of books unread give us pause for thought and reflection that give us a chance understand each other and ourselves better. Words on pages not only take us to worlds beyond, they give us a bond as well. We stopped at many more places in the course of that day – Elise’s 25th birthday – and took in many sights, but the dusty outdoor bookstore holds a special memory.
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