The smell and feel and
heft of books, time to move, only a mile away, the same neighborhood, and
unexpectedly a new home called to us and we answered, empty nesters now, this
an updated home with more room, better views, but what of the books some 7,000
strong, overflowing the old house’s master bedroom, the former kids’ rooms, the
game room, the half bath, and closets and I couldn’t let movers touch them, no
sir, and I’m still twenty-something mentally and I will move them myself, all
of them, and it will be fun and a fine workout but time waits for no man, and I
pack, and arrange, and lift, and push forward and the steep stairs push back
and thirty boxes turns to three hundred and damnit my huge bottle of ibuprofen
is the only thing separating me from incapacity and hospitalization but it’s
worth it I swear to myself and each packed box tingles and thrills as thirty
years of closely curated finds reveal themselves once again and I can’t
remember them all but I do rediscover most as they fill my hands and I pause
over and over to dip and touch and recall finds hiding in top shelves of
bookstores, dealer catalogues, auction houses, and a furniture store, and I
remember friends and acquaintances, a world of rare book hunters, some still
close and others gone until Book Valhalla’s reunion and sadness and happiness
as memories flow and I realize my book centered life is a people centered life
and immersion in books can be almost overwhelming at times, almost, and I think
about this as my breath is short and my dolly creaks under a stack of boxes,
and I figure out even as a liberal arts major how to engineer 27 boxes
in my Korean-born SUV, the rear tailgate not quite secure, but again I rationalize
I’m only a mile away to the new house and I dodge youngsters playing in the
street and wonder if they’ll even know what a book is as sweat drips and my sight
is blurred and I barely miss my octogenarian neighbor walking his hot dog and I
realize I almost took out one of the old school readers who may not know a rare
book from a paperback but he knows a book and I coast gingerly into our new expansive
driveway hoping not to shake a binding or twerk a fragile, wrappered copy, and
this is only the delivery part and does not include my new expertise at
assembling IKEA bookshelves that take the place of those dreamed of custom
shelves that somehow never happen as the extra money goes to books and not to
shelves and my priorities of a collector bubble up and I think fleetingly of
the exotic sports car that could have been mine had my tastes not run to books
and then I’m okay because someday I might sell some of these books and buy a
sports car which is as likely as a unicorn, but the sun is shining, the air
pure, and it balms the spirit as I precariously balance wants and needs and how
my mind does wander when hot and tired and then it’s time to carry those boxes gently
and lovingly up that damn flight of steep stairs to the new game room that is
now properly a library and then the idea to put everything in alphabetical
order worms into my brain like mad cow disease and instead of a couple weeks of
moving it becomes a couple of months, and the organization takes the form of
dozens of stacks and piles and temporary shelves and god knows what saturate my
full mind as the mass is organized and all else is forgotten and the spouse
wonders what sanity is left and I pause long enough to give that boyish look
that is both cute and exasperating to the loved one and more time is granted
for the folly and glory of a book person at full intensity, and miraculously
order emerges, despite pause after delightful pause, and my reflexes sharpen as
I ninja to keep half shelves from falling over and any book baby that is
fragile is given extra attention and I realize more dust jacket and mylar
covers are needed and this proposed task is daunting but the idea warms like
the bourbon and Coke being sipped from my thermos, not to hide the drink but
because it leaves no rings on books or shelves, and as my new library takes
shape, the pain, the mental juggling, those pleasant distractions of work and
family, melt away leaving a glorious ensemble of bookish delights to surround,
fortify, please, intrigue, and sooth, each tome a person reaching from
finality, and I grasp carefully one close and dip again or anew, and my biceps
are taut as youth, and I can’t await my first book visitors to the new home and
as this passionate thought provides stimulation, I notice, forlornly, that
available shelf space in the new home is not what I had hoped and I worry once
again, but it passes and somehow, I’m ready for more and no one is surprised.
Visitors this month. Move it and they will come.
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| The Upstairs Library |
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| The Master Bedroom Library |
Visitors this month. Move it and they will come.
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| Very Fine collectors Bill Fisher & Douglas Adams with The Batman (and me) |
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| Kevin Mac Donnell, Mighty Twain Collector & Scholar (and noted Dealer) |
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| Old friend & former colleague Richard Austin, Director of Books & MSS at Sotheby's NY. |
