Today I visited one of my favorite haunts in Palm Beach Gardens––The Book Exchange & Comic Book Store––on Northlake Boulevard in North Palm Beach, Florida.It's been a few months since I pushed through their single-entry door, and now as always I take care my entrance because immediately I face book stands, shelves, and glass-fronted cases––some with first-edition or antique books. I set my iPhone's timer to one hour for browsing, realizing that's not nearly enough time for walking up and down, around and behind their plethora of used books. Genres and subjects are marked on shelf edges, and children's and young adults' literature have their respective nooks. From wall hooks, straw baskets hang for the customer's convenience of stashing finds from among the narrow alleys. I search for a deep and wide basket because I favor hardbacks, which take up more space and have more heft than paperbacks.
Today I headed for the poetry section, to continue tipping my hat to April's designation as National Poetry Month. Whoa! What a motherlode I found. What a motherlode I bought. To wit:
- Haiku: This Other World by Richard Wright
- The Mail from Anywhere by Brad Leithauser
- Essays and Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Selected Poems of May Sarton, ed. SSHilsinger/LBrynes
- Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, ed. Ted Hughes
- Karol Wojtyla: Collected Poems, translated by JPeterkiewicz
- The Oxford Book of Garden Verse, and
- Vignettes in Violet by Marion Perham Gale, dated 1928.
I'll be busy for awhile, doing you-know-what. I promise I'll not be tempted to stray from my New Year's promise of reading catch-up from last year. Believe that, and it's a belated April Fool's on you, my dear readers. Smile.
It seems like only yesterday that we said we would cut back on our supply of books. Hmmmm......
ReplyDeleteI did, dear June. Really, I did––to make room for more.
DeleteOwning a book is like owning jewelry, except for the price of admission. In both cases, some are owned forever, others are eventually sold or given away. The pleasure of ownership depends in part on touch, so a digital book would not provide satisfaction any more than wearing a holgram for a necklace.
ReplyDeleteBuy books without guilt.
RB
A big thank you, RB. Nice analogy. I try not to have guilt when I buy books. What's harder to overcome is shelf/space limitations. My next home will have a built-in library with floor-to-ceiling shelves on as many walls as possible.
Delete