 Literary Links I gave up all my magazine and newspaper subscriptions several years ago. There was simply no time to read them all, or even to skim them once I opened BiblioBuffet if I wanted to continue reading books. It was a difficult decision. I loved opening my mailbox to the New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The Sun, Architectural Digest, Utne Reader, Mother Jones, Consumer Reports, Gourmet, Outside, and a couple of specialty magazines on photography and diving plus the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. For a while I did what most people do—I let old issues pile up while telling myself I’d get to them “tomorrow.” The same thing happened to me that happens to everyone. Tomorrow never comes. Or when it did come all I was able to do was quickly skim looking for one or two articles that were of particular interest. Occasionally, they would complement a book I had, and I’d cut it out and put it in the book, but the truth is I grew tired of three issues of the same publications on the coffee table, the end tables, and the night stands. And more than once, I found books I had forgotten I was in the midst of reading buried under several magazines. (A friend, Harriet Schechter, who has written several books on de-cluttering has one good rule I was disobeying: never put a bigger thing on top of a smaller. It’s a guaranteed way to “lose” something. She’s right.) As the subscriptions began to run out I realized that some were relatively easy to let go of. But most were painful. Magazines are fun. Newspapers—well, at least the New York Times, was very difficult to stop and that had nothing to do with their seemingly endless appeals for me to re-subscribe. I wasn’t addicted to the front page news as much since all that can be found at several excellent online publications, but it was the human interest stories that I missed: the immigrant women who gather each day on a certain street corner in New York City hoping to get work as housecleaners. I cut that article out and put it in a book. I can’t remember the name of the book but suspect it is Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. (That’s where I’d put it now.) Another article I cut out was a travel piece on the ancient fossils being found on England’s “stormy” Channel Coast, the family of the writer following in the footsteps of Mary Anning, a pioneer hunter of fossils. That particular article is tucked into Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, between pages 84 and 85 where he talks about Anning and the coasts along the English Channel. I never kept book reviews. Those didn’t and don’t much interest me in keeping, though if I find a used book with one in it I will keep it there. What I do love finding are things that relate in some way to my books, and that is why nearly everyone one of my cookbooks has at least one magazine or newspaper recipe or food-related story tucked into it. A couple of the books are even showing bumps meaning so much do I have in there. I know I should get rid of some of them, but I cannot bring myself to do it because they, well, they go together for me. I have made them unique. To remove the story or article or recipe would be to strip the book of its personality. When I began letting the subscriptions lapse I also began running out of material to stuff into my books. That was the hardest part, I think, because I love finding connections. It’s those links that tie together in unexpected ways that mean a lot to me. As has been pointed out, I am not without material even with no magazines or newspapers coming into the house. In fact, I have even more resources with the Internet. But the truth is it is not the same—and here’s why. When I cut out something from a newspaper or magazine I have the original piece on the original physical paper. When I ran across the recipe for Peaches and Raspberries in Ancho Syrup with Chile Threads that I cut out from Gourmet magazine in 2005 tucked into David Mas Masumoto’s Heirlooms: Letters from a Peach Farmer a couple of weeks ago (between pages 50 and 51 where the chapter titled “Eating Rejects” opens) I was immediately transported back to my first reading of the book when I bought it in 2007: First the aroma grabbed my attention: these smelled like real peaches. Biting into one, the juices would drip down my cheeks and dangle on my chin. Then, the nectar exploded in my mouth as the pulp slid past the tongue and down the throat. I stopped and savored the moment of pleasure: smacking my lips, sucking my tongue, and still tasting peach. I gorged myself and grew fat. How could one not read that and immediately realize the recipe had to come out of the magazine and into its real home in the book? Or how I could read about those immigrant women, working so hard and taking such risks, without thinking about Ehrenreich’s powerful portrayal of the economy at an individual level? I couldn’t. Frankly, I miss doing making those links and then putting them together. Printing out the articles from the Internet just isn’t the same. I might get the same words, but it’s not the same thing. On plain bond paper, those words seem to me to make a little less . . . impact, to have less feeling. I need to feel an attachment to the paper used in newspapers and various magazines. Whether rough or glossy and whether thick or thin, it’s the form of the article or essay or review or op-ed piece that has as much meaning to me as the words. I’m not surprised given my attachment to books. I don’t resent the Kindle or the iPad, but I have no interest in getting an e-reader. I could not imagine giving up or even halting the growth of my physical library for the sake of expediency. And that is the reason I am very close to re-subscribing to at least several of my former publications (and a few new ones). My time is no more flexible, but I have developed the habit of using it more wisely. I am also able to toss, without a thought, an older issue when new one comes in. But I am hopeful that new habits, and maybe fewer subscriptions, will be the answer. Because the truth is I very much miss the paper which even though it is ephemeral has a much longer-lasting presence than any online link could ever hope to attain. Upcoming Book Festivals: A full three days of events marks the Way Out West Texas Book Festival taking place on July 29-31 in Alpine, Texas. The event kicks off on Thursday evening with a Meet-and-Greet/Barbecue evening; tickets are required. Friday is a full day with events for children during the day and a special reception and banquet in the evening with a reading by Denise Chavez. Saturday offers fifteen speakers who will talk about their specialties, and nearly two dozen vendors will also be there. In the evening the closing event, the Flatlanders Concert, takes place; tickets are also required for this one. Anyone who thinks that physical booksellers can’t compete, in terms of size and choice, with online sellers hasn’t been to the Newberry Book Fair. Beginning Thursday, July 29 and running through August 1 the Newberry Library in Chicago will be holding its annual book fair. What awaits are more than 120,000 used books in seventy categories, most under $2. I particularly envy those of you in Chicago since the manager of the fair graciously accepted my invitation to submit a piece about his work. You’ll find it in our BibliOpinions section. It is amusing, intriguing, and educational, a wonderful look into the behind-the-scenes work that makes this fundraising book sale one of the best in the nation. The Pub House: Another imprint, Trade Paper Press is their nonfiction arm, and in here you’ll find a large array of books ranging from biographies to travel. Among them is A Date Which Will Live in Infamy: An Anthology of Pearl Harbor Stories That Might Have Been, an "anthology of fictional alternatives “to the events that led up to, occurred during, and followed directly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” They also have a small offering of children’s books. Imaging Books & Reading: Of Interest: Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
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