It's generally true of Halofirians, I believe, that we are not predominantly 'material' people. Idea stuff and spiritual stuff is of greater importance to most of us than collecting lots of material stuff. But nearly everyone has some one material thing that they find irresistable. In the presence of that one thing we become moths to the flame, magpies on a chip of tinfoil.
For me, it is books. I love books. Not just the ideas contained in them, though I probably love them first and most for that reason; but I love the physical object for it's own sake, the crinkle of turned pages, the glossiness of dustjackets, the fonts, the layout of the half-titles which can be different with every publisher ... I actually read the copyright page before anything else and revel in the edition I've purchased. To see books standing on my shelf gives me a greater sense of material well-being than anything else. I catalogue every book I buy. I take them down and just hold them in my hand and think how cool it is that ideas can be preserved in such a pleasant material form. I buy tattered books and repair them just for the pleasure of seeing them returned to usefulness.
I have to forbid myself to go into a bookstore until all the bills have been paid for the month because if there is something I've been coveting for awhile I turn into a creature like unto those awful men who would drink their week's wages in the local bar on Friday night while their infant children wanted milk. Put me in a bookstore with money in my pocket (paper or plastic) and my buddha-self gets tied up and gagged and locked in the closet.
Must. Have. Books.
My socks have holes in them but never mind that. Today I found some very choice books. The socks can wait.
The problem with little greeds of this sort is that people can use them to really hurt you. And I've been afflicted, in my lifetime, with people who should have felt otherwise but nevertheless took occasional perverse pleasure in hurting me. This has, on a few occasions, taken the form of destroying my books. Also, my office at school was robbed twice ... it used to be that the school allowed 'book trucks' to buy up books at the end of each term and re-sell them, but the students would break into faculty offices and steal books to resell so we don't allow the 'brown market' any longer, but meanwhile I lost about $3000 worth of books in two break-ins, one of which cost my office mate something like $10,000 in video equipment.
So over the past few years or so I have been attempting to rebuild my library with things that were (a) destroyed by my Mom when she was mad at me (b) destroyed by my ex-husband when he was mad at me (c) stolen by my students. [sigh] Most of what I've been trying to replace was either a first edition and therefore much more expensive now than when I acquired it, or, a text now out of print. The challenge is to (a) find the best deal on a first edition (b) find an acceptable substitute for a text.
Today, I went out to buy Children of Húrin, and landed on a used book windfall so wonderful (in my view at least) that I had to tell someone about it.
[Sidebar] When it comes to sharing things like this with my kids, as opposed to sharing them with the messageboard ... if I go bazookas in a bookstore I try to break this to my children gently, in little chunks ... because THEY KNOW WHAT I AM. Our last discussion about this issue ended with D#1 sneaking into my house while I was out of town and putting a couch in my living room, thereby necessitating the removal of a bookcase and its contents to Somewhere Else. Women my age should have couches in their living rooms and not look like the lobbies of public libraries, says D#1. Per the Austin-like sensibilities of D#1, I am one endpaper away from being a chapter in the life of Calamity Jane.
For the sake of social convention I allow D#1 to select my clothing. But I do not allow her to inspect my sock drawer. [/Sidebar]
So, I headed to Borders because I had a gift card with a bit of money left on it and I thought I'd use it up on Children of Húrin, expecting the book to cost maybe ... $40? But it was only $26 for starters, and Borders had it on sale for 30% off, and they were still well-stocked with first printings of the American edition. So between the discount and the gift card, I got CoH for < $7, tax inclusive
Then I trotted myself across the street to a used book store that is ... well, such a mess, so ill-managed, without catalogueing and barely separating fiction from non-fiction or alphabetizing by author ... <coughs and ahems of disapproval> ... usually there are boxes of book just spilling out all over the floor, and I've come across first editions there that were destroyed by mishandling after they had been purchased from estates. Usually the books are overpriced, too, because the man and woman who run the place don't really know their market. BUT .... I trotted over there because the professors at Bryn Mawr college tend to unload their books at this particular shop when they retire and clean out their offices, so every once in a while you hit someone's gem of a clearance sale.
TODAY, I walked in the door, and they had just stacked someone's library of Tolkien-related works.
For a snivelling $61.00 I got first American editions, hardcover with dust jackets, in mint and near-mint condition:
The Sil
Book of Lost Tales, I and II
Tolkien and The Great War by Garth
Master of Middle Earth by Kocher (the dj on this one is chipped
)and a paperback copy of The Lost Road.
There was other stuff but it was either in bad condition or something I already had.
So I left for the bookstore hoping that CoH would be $40 or less, and came home with 6 books that I've been longing for, and I only have to shave ~$28 off the next few grocery bills to come out even.
OK, so the green beans are always generic and the socks always have holes in them. But I HAVE BOOKS.
The thing that was extra-special cool about this is that there was a set of Lost Tales I and II a few years ago at another used bookstore I frequent, and I passed on it because it had been shelved in direct sunlight and the dj spines were badly faded. I've been sort of kicking myself ever since then because I wondered how long it would be before I found another set, if ever, and the set I found today was not only in much finer condition but $40 cheaper!
When the buddha-self comes out of the closet I will have to do a penance because I didn't really need more books. No, precious, not at all. But they are so bee-yoo-tee-ful.
I put this in the Library because it was about books, but if one has other merry greeds for which one routinely apologizes to one's buddha-self, one is invited to confess them here.
Jn
(Even though, since I carry mine everywhere they are not pristine like some others I have seen with folks.)
