Books in My Bag: Used Bookstore Haul, part II

The other day I posted about a mini-spree at a used bookstore and mentioned the memoirs I had picked up. Today, I'll fill you in on the books about writing that wound up in my bag.

Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading, edited by Laura Furnam & Elinore Standard (Carroll & Graf, 1997). Sixty short essays by a wide-ranging and somewhat eclectic collection of noteworthy writers and readers, including: Tobias Wolff, W. H. Auden, Sven Birkets, Charles Lamb, Miep Gies, Jane Kenyon, Alan Cheuse, Wallace Stevens, and Anne Lamott. I opened to a page at random and found this: "Reading while watching baseball on television is especially fine, and given light reading, is easily brought off with the help of the instant replay. Why do one thing at a time when you can do two? And between the two done simultaneously, light reading and watching television, the former almost always wins out." – Joseph Epstein

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (Fourth edition, 2000). Yes I already have two copies. So what? This one is in a larger format, in pristine condition; mine are tattered, yellowed and often out on loan. Plus there's a foreword by writer (and White's stepson) Roger Angell, who says, "Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time." My favorite Strunk & White admonition? Two: "Don't explain too much," and "Be clear."

The Writer on Her Work, edited by Janet Steinburg (Norton, 1980). Another essay collection, bringing the total of essay collections on my shelf to…oh, you don't want to know! Essays by 17 notable women writers, including so many favorites – Joan Didion, Toni Cade Bambara, Mary Gordon, Honor Moore, Maxine Hong Kingston. Opened at random, I read this: "A writers needs certain conditions in which to work and create art. She needs a piece of time; a peace of mind; a quiet place; and a private life." – Margaret Walker.

Roget A to Z, edited by Robert L. Chapman (Harper Perennial, 1994). Yes, I use an online thesaurus; yes I have a battered old copy of Roget's from college. But, you should see this one. Nearly three inches thick. So beautifully laid out, graphically and visually pleasing. And organized alphabetically. 300,000 words! I especially love the slightly tongue-in-cheek quotes, for example, under the synonyms and other information for the word conservative, you'll read: "the leftover progressive of an earlier generation - Edmund Fuller."

So that's my haul. What did you emerge with the last time you stepped into a bookstore, used or otherwise?

Book Hauls: The Traveling Writer's Souvenirs

Lately I've heard about so-called "haul" videos, in which young women show off the clothing, shoes, and accessories scored on a shopping trip. I wondered what this might light like for those of us whose idea of a fab shopping expedition involved book stores. Talk about judging a book by its cover!

I spent yesterday in a typical college town, and while my son was busy elsewhere, I hunted down the requisite off-campus independent used bookstore. The guidebook said it was "Pennsylvania's largest" which left me salivating – until I arrived to find the air conditioning had broken down the night before. It was 95 and beastly humid. I lasted 15 minutes only because there was a big fan next to the Memoir and the Writing sections.

Instead of a video, I'll just list the title, author, a quickie synopsis, and then open to a random page and quote a few lines. Here are the memoirs. I'll be back tomorrow or the next day with the writing books.

The Exact Same Moon: Fifty Acres and a Family, by Jeanne Marie Laskas (Bantam/Dell 2003). Motherhood, adoption, family, farming. "I sit here staring at her picture, my feet digging into a snoring beagle, and I start calculating. I think about digging to China. I think about getting Billy in here with a backhoe I think of packing myself in a big wooden box and mailing myself to China. I think of the satellite dish on my roof, beaming TV in from outer space. Couldn't I rig it to somehow beam me up and then down to China? I think of Bewitched and Samantha and I Dream of Jeanie and My Favorite Martian and so many of the friends I grew up with who could just click and go. I think of the moon. I wonder if anyone has even shown her the moon. I think of writing her a letter immediately and telling her about the moon."

No More Words: A Journal of my Mother Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by Reeve Lindbergh (Touchstone/S&S 2001). Dementia, silence, mothers, daughters, notoriety, acceptance and loss. "I think she accepts what is offered out of ingrained politeness, but would be perfectly content to sit and stare and do nothing else. The rest of us are not content with this, however. It makes us uncomfortable. We want her to be doing something, thinking something, reading something, participating in some way that we can understand."

The Road Home, by Eliza Thomas (Dell 1997). Solitude, making a home, rural life, unexpected family. "This time, at least I stopped my car. He looked like the same dog, and though he was a bit shy, I coaxed him into my car easily enough. He was skinny and caked with weeks of muck, had on an old green collar but no tags, and was evidently lost. As I'd thought, people at work took it well in stride when I showed up with him; they had dealt with far worse emergencies than my dirty and excitable beagle puppy. I kept him under my desk, where he barked all day, and then took him home"

Have you had a good book haul lately?

Author Interviews, Book Review Sites, and a Used Books Cache

►Now that the household is healthy once again, it's going to be a busy month here. I have four author interviews lined up, so look for one each week, starting in a few days. I'm always thrilled when writer friends have new books coming out, and especially when it's a first book. Yes, I'm jealous too. Sue me.

►I recently discovered One Minute Book Reviews and if I hadn't also recently met the blog author, I'd have thought she was really ten people, otherwise how could she possibly read all of those books and make all of those smart observations? But she's the real deal and what I like most is that she takes a look at all kinds of books, not just a narrow sampling of personal favorites, as is often the case with book blogs.

►This weekend was the annual used book sale held at the apple-pumpkin market on the grounds of an historic site here in our little town. I got there just as the barn doors opened for first crack at the stacks (and piles, boxes, rows and milk crates full) of books. I wasn't looking for anything in particular (why risk disappointment?) which I find is the best way to approach these things.

The haul: 34 books. Total: $14. A very random sampling:

• The Slate Diaries. Pre-2000 postings from a hugely divergent group of 71 essayists, journalists, novelists and others from the site's early days, and a how-Slate-started introduction by Micheal Kinsley that now reads as both social media commentary and quaintly wide-eyed history.
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger). 'Cause my teenager is going to have to read it sometime soon and since it's his habit to first read the school-issued copy and then re-read and re-read, and this was a never-been-cracked open recent issue. And hey, I can barely remember most of it myself. Maybe I'll read along with him.
• Blue Shoes and Happiness (Alexander McCall Smith). Never had a desire to read anything from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, but a visitor recently remarked that I had a lot of "blue books" on my shelf – Blue Suburbia (Laurie Lico Albanese, a memoir in poetry); Born on a Blue Day (Daniel Tammet's memoir of growing up with Asperger's Syndrome); and Blue Peninsula (Madge McKeithen's memoir of how poetry got her through a son's illness). [Anyone else see a symmetry there?] So I grabbed it. And you know, anything with "shoes" in the title might be OK.
• Paris to the Moon (Adam Gopnik). I snagged this even though it was the only one in my stash with that musty been-sitting-in-the-basement-too-long odor, because I love Gopnik's New Yorker essays and articles and since I'll never move to Paris (or anywhere!) with my spouse and kids for a few years and bathe in culture and food and all things foreign, I may as well read about it.
• The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros). A chapter from this novel-in-vignettes was assigned during grad school and I was happy to find the slim book. Lately, I love anything written in short sections like this (some as short as a half-page). Is it my ever-shortening attention span in the face of too much to do, or my love of writers who can condense and condense and yet say so much more?
• Three by Annie Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, The Writing Life. This is a strange thing to say for someone who just finished an MFA in creative nonfiction: I'm not a huge Dillard fan; and yet I've learned an awful lot from studying her writing, so I figured this belongs on my shelf. If I read only a page at a time, from time to time, I'm guessing it will be worth at least 50 times what I paid for it. Probably more.
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Lynne Truss). Had this on my Christmas list a few times but Santa apparently isn't into grammar and punctuation and all that.
• It Happened in New Jersey (Fran Capo). I plead guilty. I live here.
• And finally, Shiloh Season (Phyllis Reynolds Naylor). Because Mom has to come home with something for her favorite young reader.

Addicted to Books? Here's Help for Your Wallet, Shelf

I have no affiliation or vested interest in it, but my new favorite place on the web is Bookmooch -- simple, “green” and a little bit fun.

You join for free and list the books languishing on your shelf that you are willing to give away. Then you browse for a book you want and when you find it, you “mooch” it from another member who ships it to you, at their cost. When someone requests a book from you, you pay the postage. You can keep a wish list going and when a book you want enters the system, you get notified, usually within minutes.

In two weeks, I’ve received five books and sent off six. The point system is easy: Every 10 books you list earns you one point, good for mooching one book. Every time you send a book out, you earn another one point. Incremental points are earned in various ways, such as leaving feedback and acknowledging transactions.

Now, even though the New York Times recently ran a feature on Bookmooch, and I think it’s a brilliant way for book addicts to collectively enable each other, this won’t replace your patronage of -- and please, for all my writer friends whose livelihoods depend on it, don’t let it – your eclectic and service-rich neighborhood independent book store, or the deep inventory of your favorite online retailer, or even that nifty website where you pick up used books.

However, when faced with a groaning shelf of volumes that, for one reason or another, you doubt you will read again, swapping them for the cost of a media mail package (I paid $2.50 today to mail a heavy hardcover; and $1.15 yesterday to send out a slim paperback) sure beats selling books at a yard sale for 25-cents each--or having your local librarian look at you funny if you walk in with books to donate.

Mooch away and let me know how it goes.