At the used bookstore the other day, waiting for the staff to pick over my only moderately delectable sack of we-don’t-want-them-anymore tomes, I wandered through the aisles reading novel blurbs and tidbits and first pages, sampling sections I often skip–browsing, like a deer in a tulip bed. In one of those sections, I pulled off the shelf a book in a field moderately close to my own–the title was intriguing, the cover colorful and clean–and found a dedication on the flyleaf to X, a person I know well, from Y, the author. With all good wishes–wishes unfulfilled? Who knows. X might have had another copy. X might have read the book with consuming interest and then simply felt the shelves of the home library were far too full. But I can’t help wondering about a falling-out, misapprehension, an angry so there! as the sellable book met the bottom of the box and was hauled out to the car. I know X knows Y rather well, but I don’t fully know the tenor of their relationship. But now I’m curious as hell, and starting to invent, which is after all one of the reasons I go into bookstores: to look for stories.
There’s a degree of intrusion in buying used books. A kind of inadvertent community, but also inadvertent revelation. Autographed books bearing the author’s signature and gratitude, and then inscribed books given at milestones and holidays. Happy birthday! Well done! May your winding path be sweet. I’ve read marriage proposals on flyleaves, which makes me wonder: is the marriage now so solid this talisman is no longer required, or was this poor volume a mortifying reminder of a misstep that could not too soon be cast aside?
I have picture books my parents gave me on my third and fourth birthdays. My husband prepares delicious meals with recipes from the first cookbook I bought him, somewhat sappily inscribed. I’ve begun a (still tiny) collection of books signed by both the translator and the author–a collection I hope to add to, because I’ve loved going to those readings, hearing the conversation back and forth, and because a translation always has, at least, two authors. And over the years I’m sure I’ve sold or donated books signed to me, inscribed to me. My name is out there somewhere, probably unrecognized by the next buyer but maybe, here and there, familiar. We used-book mavens can be a tight-knit lot.
As it happens, one of the books I wanted to sell–one of two the bookseller ultimately declined–was also signed, signed for me by the editor. It’s an anthology of inspiring (inspirational? inspired?) vignettes I purchased at a reading a friend took me to, years ago, and never opened again. I remember the reading now, the fact of the friend taking me, her hesitation–would I like it?–and my willingness to try any event she might suggest (she’s that kind of friend).
So what do I do with that signed but unsold book? Put it back on the shelf where it won’t give me away? Read it, at last? Or wait for a garage sale, a box for St. Vincent de Paul, the Friends of the Library donation barrel? For now, I’ll content myself with weaving an explanation for why X’s copy of Y’s book came to be sold. Perhaps the book will finally be purchased for another X (it’s not the most uncommon of names) and presented as a gift, personally signed by the author. True and untrue at once, and no one the wiser.