 Bookstalgia In a recent article by Julia Keller in the Chicago Tribune, she mentioned that “many people, regardless of age, are feeling nostalgic these days for book culture,” or what she termed “a sort of prenostalgia, really, because books are still here — but their days seem numbered.” Are they? While I have not yet had the experience of walking into a reader’s home and seeing walls instead of bookcases I wonder if that is coming. Fortunately, the readers I know now who do have e-readers also have bookcases. Lots of bookcases, most with books on top of (and behind) books. Their e-readers supplement but don’t replace their books; my friends tend to buy both digital and print copies to satisfy different needs. For me, I can’t see an e-reader, not because I am opposed to technology but because I adore books as objects. I am as much addicted to the book as a package (the cover, the paper, print, etc.) as I am the story. I revel in the physical parts that make it up, and in particular to the personal characteristics of well-used books including their scents. As I sit typing this I stop and look up at the shelves above my head. What I see on the bottommost shelf, closest to my head are books about which I am deeply nostalgic. I have not only read them but remember where I bought them and when. I recall the feelings as I lifted each one up into my arms, my decision made. It was a Saturday morning in 1994 when I attended an auction and found a limited edition twelve-volume signed set (no. 970 of 1,001) of Christopher Morley’s works published in 1927 by Doubleday, Page & Company. It was wholly unread when I bought it because the pages for ten of the volumes remain uncut. I did read Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop in the small volumes, and part of the pleasure of the reading came from having to spend an hour or so prior to the reading cutting the pages open with a chef’s knife, which was the only way to be sure of cutting the pages neatly without tearing. To its left is another twelve-volume set, this one of Jane Austen’s works. Unlike the still-perfect Morley books, this collection, published in 1906, has damaged spines; the leather is completely missing on two of them, partially missing on two others, and has bits missing on the rest. But they are not falling apart. On the contrary, they all have tight spines, and it amuses me to be able to read on the spine of Mansfield Park (Part I) about various “syrups”: of Citric Acid, of Ginger, Garlic, and Wild Cherry as well as “tincture” of Snakeroot, Rhubarb, Opium, Lobelia, Cinnamon, and Pepper. (It appears these are all recipes from an old(er) books. Words like “steep, teaspoons, and pints appear.) Pages from the same book appear to have been used for Sense and Sensibility (Part II) because on that spine I see recipes for what appears to be a hair cleanser involving salt, and other beauty aids that involve parsley or carrots (gives “a glow, apparently) or beets (for the cheeks). What is suggested for the eyebrows is unknown for right after the word is where the spine ends. Emma (Part II) uses a page that offers homemade medical treatments because I see words like “excreted,” “internal,” “ailments,” “poisonous,” “mercury,” “treatment,” and “constipation.” But on the inside these books are perfect, as tight as they day they came from the printer, the tissue paper guarding the colored illustrations soft and white, and the illustrations themselves still brilliant. I treasure the reading of these particular books, even though I have Austen in lovely Penguin Classics editions too. They just feel like an Austen book should feel, rich, thick, luxurious, full of elegant seductive power. I found these at a local thrift store in 1997, and because of the spine damage (and maybe because they weren’t in the Tom Clancy league) they had been heavily discounted. Lucky me! Lying in front of these books is a single volume of a set of whose issuance I have no knowledge. It contains three of Shakespeare’s plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. The book was found in a box of donations to the annual Planned Parenthood sale, and one of the other volunteers, not finding its companions, tossed it. I rescued it from the trash, and it has been living with me ever since. It’s not a book I have ever tried to read: the front cover is missing. The back cover is fully detached. The spine, of a dark brown leather, has no notations on it—at least none that can be discerned amid the dry, cracked leather. The title page is only one-third there, noting it is “Volume the Ninth” of “The WORKS of Mr. William Shakefpear.” How old it is I cannot say but the typeface is small, and the “s” is often represented by an “f” as in “Nay, anfwer me : ftand and unfold your felf.” This language and print feels far more Shakespearean to me than any modern-day version, however beautiful, can create. Which is why I, though I wouldn’t struggle to read it, would never give it up. Would that I could discover its publisher; I’d love to own the set. Further along that same shelf are several first editions (alas, jacketless) of Sinclair Lewis’s works, and small, old, leatherbound volumes of Dostoevsky, RL Stevenson, Eliot, Hardy, Hugo, and Byron. Most I have read and would reread in these editions. Because I am nostalgic for the times in which the books were written and printed. Its the duality of books—the package as well as the story—that makes books important to me. While I am fascinated by modern cover design and will buy certain editions for their covers, I am inexorably drawn to books that contain their story in their packaging as well as on their pages. The books don’t have to be perfect. In fact, I prefer they are not. Give me a first edition of Pride and Prejudice and while I would love and admire it I would never read it. A $65,000 book isn’t one I’d want to read with a glass of wine in hand, or even pick up without white archival gloves. But I will read my copy with that wine because for me nostalgia is in the package as much as it is in the words. And together they make my reading the experience it should be—full of bookstalgia. Upcoming Book Festivals: The Pub House: Among their books are the newly published Wings of Opportunity, the story of the first American flight school in Montgomery, Alabama, opened by Wilbur and Orville Wright. For fans of Civil War history, So You Think You Know Gettysburg, also new, offers an in-depth look (including maps, site descriptions, and photos) at the place and the people who made it including many not well known. An older book (2006) but still in print is The Bed She Was Born In, a novel about five women—three black and two white—“whose intimate relationships unravel past assumptions about segregation, even as they weave the intricate tapestry that is the American South” in the years 1865, 1885, 1905, 1917, and 1932. Imaging Books & Reading: My invention consists in attaching rollers to the front edges of book-shelves, so that when a book is withdrawn from or placed upon the shelf, it will move over the roller instead of over the edge of the shelf, . . . The edges of the book-shelves are ordinarily made sharp, so that a book which is frequently taken down from and replaced upon the shelves, soon becomes worn out, its lower edges being destroyed by the sharp corners of the shelves over which it is dragged, especially if the shelf upon which it is kept is higher than the level of the person’s head who handles it, or if the books are very heavy—such as books of record and heavy account-books. To obviate this difficulty I mount a roller . . . just in front of the edge of each shelf, so that the lower edges of the book will rest upon and roll over the roller, both when the books are being taken down from the shelf or placed upon it. This roller can be made of wood, metal, india-rbber, or other suitable material. I prefer to use wooden rollers and cover them with a thin layer of soft india-rubber or other soft elastic or yielding material. Ordinary rubber tubing can be drawn over the wooden or other roller, and thus furnish a soft and yielding covering for the book to rest upon, and it will, owing to its yielding and adhesive nature, insure the rotation of the roller when the book is being moved over it, so that there will be no rubbing friction on the book-edge. The rollers may be variously applied, but I provide any suitable metal bearings, which are fixed to the underside of the shelves so as to project out far enough to support the roller clear of the shelf-edge, and so that its upper edge is slightly above the level of the shelf-surface. The shelf must be wide enough to support the books without allowing any of them to touch the roller, so that the roller can rotate freely. I do not confine myself to any particular style of roller, nor to any particular arrangement for supporting the roller or apply it to the shelf-edge. What I claim is— A book-shelf, B, in combination with a roller, C, arranged along its front edge, as described, for the purpose set forth. Of Interest: Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
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