Story to Tell

The second hand bookstore is always full of surprises and while it is backbreaking work lugging books up the hill from the school shipping container and sorting and pricing boxes, it is cathartic sitting among thousands of pages of books. Vintage, new, hardly read, dog-eared, names inscribed, ex library or with the bookmark still resting between the pages. Every book has (pardon the pun) a story to tell.

My reward for spending so much time voluntarily running the bookstore for the fair is free access to the books. Not surprisingly I don’t grab for the shiny covers or the chick lit. I prefer to pick up books with a history like the weather beaten copy of Lord of the Rings (definitely an early print from the 70’s and a well-loved book with pages loosened at the spine. I am like the Lost Dog’s home for books. I cannot send a book to the recycle bin if a child has scrawled on its pages. I did the same with my books as a child, pretending to be a librarian and stamping the back page. I wasn’t being destructive. I was expressing my love for books at an early age – just like this child.

As I sneeze my way through dusty book after dusty book, I find a cricket story for my son and a book about dogs for my daughter; again pretty grotty books that some child must have read over and over again. Then I stumble on The Prose Works of Henry Lawson and on the back cover is a membership to the Marvic Book Club in Ascot Vale. The postcode reads as W2. The book was printed in 1935. Inside in lead is written, “This book is 3’ per week. Obviously the price you paid back then to loan books. I wonder if they had wine and nibbles at their book club?

I love the treasures that surface every week in the second hand book store and think of friends and colleagues that might be matched to certain books just like families are paired with stray cats and dogs. Veggie growing suits this friend, readers are appropriate for Preps, bike touring for my neighbours, crime for another friend and so on. I even found a book, Two for the Road, which my friend’s husband was pictured in. Apparently her Auntie’s sister-in-law was the author. Such a small world – I promise I’ll review it later.

Don’t worry I will sell some of the books, but my friends also deserve a new book in their lives. I am the gatherer and distributor of once treasured books for both the young and old. My book club loaning sticker would read: All I ask is that you enjoy and love this book!