The Bibliophile at the Book Sale

Do you believe in ghosts?

A bibliophile is someone who loves or collects books. A logophile or lexophile is a lover of words. If you are a lover of reading, you are called Bookish and Bookworm. The Latin word is lectiophile which works but it’s certainly not very common and doesn’t roll off the tongue like bibliophile does. A pluviophile is someone who loves rain, by the way. There will be a quiz later.

I am a bibliophile although I keep it under control. I don’t have the money or space to collect too many more books. I am also a logophile and a lectiophile. I actually keep a list of favorite words. Sylvan is # 1 in case you are wondering.

Since Covid, my local library had cancelled their used books sales. It’s been about eighteen months since they had one. I did buy a few new books at Browsers, our downtown book shop, during the shutdown and my Book Club kept me reading this whole time with their monthly suggestions. Those books usually came from the library; as many audio as I could get. Audio books allows me to read two books at once. One in print at home and one in my car in my cd player. More than once, I’ve driven to work a little early and sat in the parking lot listening until the end of the chapter. And since I was fortunate to keep working during Covid, I didn’t make a dent in my unread book collection sitting on my shelves at home.

And then there was the book sale. Or should I say The Book Sale. The. Book. Sale.

I don’t need any new books. No reason to go. But I can’t stay away.

At the library, there are about eight metal racks in the corner of the parking lot. There is a children’s section, cookbooks, middle grade and crafts. Then I walk through the door, past the table with the ladies guarding the money box and into the room. The Room. The. Room.

Wall to wall books propped up on tables hugging the walls and more down the middle of the room. They smell of old paper and old covers. They smell of hundreds of hands caressing each one, lifting their covers, gently turning their pages and regarding each one as a treasure. The hands of a book lover touching its beloved.

There are only three other people in the room and we are all quietly, reverently walking among the books. There is something spiritual about being among books. It is a feeling I get whether I am at the library or at a bookstore. Anyplace there are hundreds of books. Each story a time capsule. Do I believe in ghosts? I believe in books and they are voices of the dead as well as the living.

I stop at the nearest table. It has a paper sign that says Old Books / Classics. These books are frayed, their hard bound covers wrapped in fraying cloth instead of paper like the more cheaply produced books today. They smell like old attics and basements. Their pages are yellowed. Some are almost too fragile to handle. I gently lift a cover and look at the publication date: 1912.

I wanted to read what someone had to say in 1912. What did the world look like from their perspective? What did they speculate about the future. I move to the next book and then the next. Slowly, quietly, absorbed in my own thoughts, lost in this heavenly place.

Onto the fiction table with lots of copies of books by James Patterson. I’ve never read James Patterson. So many titles. Such thick books. There’s plenty of other books, too, of course. From there, I moved onto the political section with lots of books with outdated topics. But I still want to know what Bill Clinton thinks or Ronald Reagan. Just because.

Gardening Books. Religion and Spiritual. Yes, I’d like to know all about the sayings of Buddha and the Dalai Lama’s view of life. How do they compare to my own faith?

Nonfiction. Poetry. Pets. Lots of books on different breeds of dogs; schnauzers, German shepherd, bull dog. None for min-pins [my dog]. There is a book on dog poems and one on raising parakeets.

Travel. I linger at the travel section. There are two books on traveling to Guernsey Scotland. I wonder if they were donated by the same person. I wonder if they went.

And here is the thing – it doesn’t matter the topic or subject. I have the same feeling I get in every bookstore or library or book sale that I attend. I want to buy them all and I want to read them all. There is a yearning that twists my gut and chokes my throat because I know I can’t. I have to let them go. I have to leave them behind and concentrate on the books that are already waiting for me at home. In the end, I buy five books: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. [I’ve read this before but I’ve forgotten so much of it and I remember how good I felt the first time I read it.] The Lost City of Z, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, At Large and At Small, and Light on Snow.

They are on my bookshelf, eager for me to read them along with the others; as hungry for me as I am for them.