Movin’ On Out
April 26, 2009

As I write this on Sunday morning I am comfortably ensconced in a corner of the sofa, a pillow on my feet to ward off the slightly chilly air that drifts in the house from the open doors and windows. My laptop is supported on my knees, and out of the corner of my eye I see the mess that was formerly my beloved living room. Books are piled messily on the floor. A small bathroom shelving unit temporarily juts out from the wall next to a misplaced coffee table, homeless leftovers from yesterday’s garage sale. Dirt, leaves, dust, pieces of torn sisal rope from the cats’ scratching post, and assorted other detritus mar the lipstick red carpet. Pictures and paintings stand in a corner. Paper bags of trash and recyclables await their trip outside. Drawers and closet doors are half-open and half-filled. I am in the process of moving.

It is a good change so I am excited. But this, like all moves, is exhausting. The real move won’t happen until Friday, May 1, but I have been taking small things over to the new place for about a week, one trip each day after work. The new freezer is full. All the books about cooking and food culture and history have been moved, and though they’re on shelves I’m pretty sure they are not going to stay where they currently reside. Towels, sheets, and most clothes have been moved. Yesterday, I took three loads of books—everything I could stuff in the car each time—over there.

This is the hard part as probably most of you know. I had a few boxes and bags, but the majority of the books were moved by hand, that is, by the armload. As many as I could carry without dropping any. Trip after trip after trip, I moved hundreds of them from the house to the car, then from the car into the new home. Three steps down at the original house, eight up at the new. 

The books that have been moved are now in piles in no order whatsoever on the blonde wood floor of the den. They are stacked in the middle of the room since I am having custom-made bookshelves made, and Ray will need to measure the walls of the living room, the den, and the bedroom.

My reading should prove interesting for a while since I have no idea where to find any book. Fortunately, I am just finishing up my current book, and have set two aside from my current bedside pile: Decline and Fall, the satiric novel by Evelyn Waugh and Strange Angel: The Otherwordly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons, a biography of one of the oddest boys of science, by George Pende. Their offbeat themes seem good choices for this upended time. These books will not be packed but instead travel with me and be set on the nightstand as soon as the moving van arrives with it. Priorities, after all.

Movers don’t much like moving books, I suspect. Books collect dust. Their cumulative weight is horrendous. Care has to be taken when packing them if the owner is fussy, as I am, about their appearance. But no house is, in my opinion, a home without well-read books. And despite my trips yesterday with the trunk and body of the car stuffed, about half my collection remains on the floor and shelves. I’ve decided to let the movers handle those. Their muscles are used to it. Mine are not, and my body let me know that this morning.

So here I sit, surveying the mess that was my home and will again be my home but is currently in that transitional phase that every move entails. I am trying to treat myself well to keep a sense of stability and calm: a broiled steak, green salad, an artichoke, and good wine for dinner last night; a day of calm with some reading and perhaps a nap today. Tomorrow begins the final part of the frenetic activity that will culminate on Friday. And a week from today I will be settled in, at least partially since the books will still be on the floor, enjoying the sound of silence and the new home. I really do think Dorothy had it right: there is no place like home.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Not really a book festival but enough of a literary celebration for me to include it is Malice Domestic, an annual “fun fan” convention held for people who enjoy traditional mysteries (think Agatha Christie), those that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore or violence, and usually feature an amateur detective, a confined setting, and characters who know one another. The convention runs three full days, from May 1-3 at the  Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia. Among the events this year are a silent auction, numerous panels on various aspects of the genre (“The Poison Lady,” “Mystery Shrouded in Classic Literature,” paranormal mysteries, mysteries that incorporate social issues, foreign-based mysteries, holiday-oriented mysteries, historical mysteries, romance in mysteries, senior-based mysteries, etc.), a mystery agents’ panel, signings, vendors, receptions, the Agatha Awards Banquet, a New Authors Breakfast, and more. Hurry if you want to attend. It’s next weekend.

On May 3, from noon to 5:00 p.m. at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the Books in Bloom festival will be held. This is one of the smaller festivals in the U.S., but it has one of the loveliest settings. And it includes three venues for the authors who appear for readings, Q&As, and signings. There is also a Kid’s Tent with special activities for young readers.

The Pub House:
Since 1999, Swan Isle Press has been publishing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that “inspires and educations while advancing the knowledge and appreciation of literature, art, and culture.” Its special interest is in books related to the Spanish and Latin American versions. These are bi-lingual books, that is, they are printed in the original Spanish with English translations so readers have the opportunity to  see and read the original words alongside the translation, a unique treat.
 
Like most quality boutique publishers, they issue only a few books a year, hence their catalog is easy to browse. Among their newer titles is Frivolous Women and Other Sinners (Frívolas y pecadoras), a collection of “seductive, irreverent, and sensual” poems that come from Buenos Aires. Over the Waves and Other Stories (Sobre las olas y otros cuentos) is a collection of short stories originally published in Cuba that focuses on Afro-Cuba experiences in its music, rituals, and myths, both past and present. Cut from Whole Cloth: An Immigrant Experience offers the opportunity to appreciate nineteenth-century German immigrant life that has much the same feeling as twenty-first-century Hispanic immigrants to America still experience: the struggle to incorporate traditional values into a new world.

Of Interest:
The Library History Buff Blog, written by Larry T. Nix, is a loving tribute to library history and its artifacts. Nix is a retired librarian who maintains this blog that includes specialty pages: Library History, Librariana (collecting library memorabilia), and Postal Librarian (collecting postal artifacts related to libraries).  

The posts are erudite, entertaining, and compelling. The current one on bookstack retrieval has a hilarious image of a futuristic book retrieval system as envisioned in 1900. It’s something that anyone, not just librarians, with too many books and too little house will appreciate. Whether he is writing about hard economic times, library cards or due dates, a British Camps Library WWI, or the John Adams library, library exhibits, or Book Wagons and Crazy Socialists his is a wonderful place to check in regularly. I love this blog.

This Week . . .
Is anyone else a fan, as I am of H.G. Wells’ book, War of the Worlds? Though I have a CD recording of Orson Welles’ radio broadcast, the original story was and continues to be such a popular book that it continues to be re-printed more than 110 years after it originally appeared. That means a new cover for each edition, giving a lot of book cover designers the opportunity to interpret the invasion of Earth by Martians. This page offers appreciators of cover design that opportunity. It’s quite something to compare three hundred and sixty visual interpretations that range from sophisticated to silly, historical to histrionic, stately to absurd, and even silly. The evolution shows not only the designer’s vision but the era’s. It’s a fascinating trip through the specialized design field using one book.

The site also provides the opportunity to view the book in various ways including interior illustrations and what is termed “Other Images,” which includes an amusing test reel created for a pitch to RKO in 1949, a selection of phonograph record jackets, comics covers, models, and the original U.S. advertisement for the 1898 edition from Harper & Brothers that calls it “a wonder - story for ‘grown – ups’.”

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren