Bookstore Angst
by
, 12-31-2008 at 12:41 AM (2726 Views)
I know I'm not the first to express or confess this particular weakness, but I seem to have a real problem staying out of new and used book stores. Even worse, I can't seem to walk out empty handed. I want to start with the used book stores. Near where I live there are 3 used book stores, Mike's, Edward's, and Steve's.
Mike's is a fledgling storefront, clean and neat. It only has a little over one book case of "literature". I stop in from time to time, but rarely do I find anything of consequence, especially works that fit into my reading quest. However, the last time I was in there I found a copy of Drieser's Jennie Gerhardt and Zola's L'Assomoir. Had to have 'em, bought 'em. Didn't need 'em.
Edward McKay's is kind of a chain and I think it's rooted in the trade of college text books, but has expanded to other books, music recordings, videos, and game systems. The one near here is kind of clean and organized, but the two rows of "classics" usually produce reasonably priced collection fillers. The last purchase here was a while ago, but it included The Damnation of Theron Ware and a collection of short stories by Fitzgerald. Coincidentally, I heard about Theron Ware in This Side of Paradise.
Steve's is a whole different animal. This place claims to have over 1 million volumes inside and I believe them. This place is crammed with all sorts of published works, a lot of them theologically based (there's a seminary near here and loads and loads of Baptists). There are books on the floor of every row running down both sides of the aisle. The rows are at least 30 feet long. One aisle is dedicated to "classic literature". One of Steve's real charms is the smell; it has this musty atticky/basement smell of old books rescued from libraries and private collections, probably obtained from estate sales, library sell offs, and yard sales. It's hard to describe, but "crap everywhere" comes close.
I spent an hour in Steve's tonight just walking the classics aisle. I found some interesting things, but I find Steve's prices to be a little high in comparison to the quality of the volume. Somewhere along the line, ol' Steve has it in his head that every beat to hell, yellow paged book has appreciated in value. He rips off or blacks out the original price and pencils in his own. Now I can understand asking a high price for a mint condition, first edition of Moby-Dick, I get it. But when you have a reprint from 1940, yellowed pages, notes in the margins, etc. it is not worth $15 just because it's old. I have yet to spend a dollar with Steve, but it is inevitable. He has some less commonly available titles by Sinclair Lewis that I want, but very little else.
I ended up at Barnes & Noble from where I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet. I ended up with a collection of Hemingway's short stories (I blame you people for that), It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. I went way over the gift card amount and put several works back. I've got a problem.
My problem is the backlog. Keeping with the American novel pursuit, I have a question -- continue forward or circle back? In continue forward, I keep reading authors through the 20th century starting with Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Faulkner. Others I could include are Bellow, Mailer, Roth, Salinger, Kerourac(?), and others. I'm inclined to stop at Faulkner. In circle back, I go back and read additional works by authors I have already read and read some of the authors I missed the first time through. So here's what the shelf looks like (literally):
After I finish 1919,
The Big Money Dos Passos
The Sun Also Rises Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms Hemingway
East of Eden Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck
The Sound and the Fury Faulkner
Flags in the Dust Faulkner
Snopes (The Hamlet, The Town, and the Mansion all combined) Faulkner
The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald
Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
Death Comes to the Archbishop Willa Cather
My, Antonia Cather
The Damnation of Theron Ware Harold Fredric
The Pit Frank Norris
Jennie Gerhardt Dreiser
The Financier Dreiser
The Titan Dreiser
Three Soldiers Dos Passos
The Call of the Wild and White Fang Jack London
Daisy Miller, Washington Square, The Aspern Papers, and The Turn of the Screw James
You Can't Go Home, Again Thomas Wolfe.
Plus, I want to reread Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn. Plus, I've got two Zola novels I want to read -- Germinal and L'Assommoir. And I added two more tonight. On top of that I have short story collections by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Flannery O'Connor.
What's an old man to do?