Parchments

When I lived in Ohio, I found a treasure trove of used books. It was an old church, renovated as a bookstore. It was creaky and drafty and I got a particular thrill of finding 'U.S. Military History' in the pulpit. The pickings were slim, but the hunt was a joy. The smell of old books is better than the smell of old money. I just want to writhe around on the floor, surrounded by old books.

I'm lucky to have three near me now. Today was Wilson's Books, in what seems to have formerly been an auto repair shop, or gas station. I found a 1949 printing of James' The American, a beautifully bound and well-maintained 1979 copy of Madame Bovary (with illustrations!), a restored edition of Plath's Ariel, and a collection of poems by Adrienne Rich.

The James has a sticker from the original bookseller. B.H. Blackwell LTD, in Oxford. I wonder what strange route it took to arrive in a sweaty little Florida town.

An excerpt from Rich...

But art requires a distance; let me be
Always the connoisseur of your perfection.
Stay where the spaces of the gallery
Flow calm between your pose and my inspection,
Lest one imperfect gesture make demands
As troubling as the touch of human hands.

from Love in the Museum

Update: My favorite thing to find is a book full of marginalia (as it sounds, notes scribbled in the margins). Ariel is FULL of scribbles from the previous owner. My favorite so far - beside the lines "It can sew, it can cook, it can talk talk talk", she has written the word OBJECTIFY.

How utterly appropriate.