Book Hunting I

Is the least rugged exploration sport I know.

An introvert’s adventure

where no specialized clothing for movement or steel edged shoes are needed.  

Book hunting is not for anyone fonder of zen and 

the clarity of chimes in an empty garden

than living alongside the eccentric’s jumbled bouquet of centuries’ wisdom.

My true first ‘collected’ manuscript came from an antique shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans, The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. 

It was on a forward facing shelf, far left corner in a low lights shop.

I saw a silver-painted living (male) statue posed for a mobile audience at the corner outside.
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Memories come in waves from walking through Lyme Regis, England

Looking from the beveled gold lettering and red leather covers of an Oliver Twist, or Hard Times by Charles Dickens  I can see to the marina through an open door or window—I can’t remember which.

It was the clearest day, not brusquely England, as assumptions tell you, but bright enough to see the seagulls tango across iced azure sky.
The kind of day when you hold hands to know your companion is there. 

And your scarves are on without the weather yelling “Cold!” like a dreadful megaphone.

Start off with a plan. One or two authors—‘I need an original Frankenstein’ (which to this day has escaped me), ‘Vanity Fair written by William M. Thackeray’, ‘I want poetry from Ezra Pound ‘ or ‘I want to find some American writers’ (it can happen, just depends where you go).    

My Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy is thin with a russet brown leather cover and capital gold lettering. Far From the Madding Crowd, a sister edition used to live in Bridport Old and Rare Books. Neighbors to a certain “silly old bear” in the “100 Acre Wood” from 1931 I adopted later. 

I took in a 1942 Hunchback of Notre Dame to teach me the music of Victor Hugo’s radiant descriptions of France from the outside, and see gargoyles watch men become “empurpled by drink.” 

It’s not a hobby I can embrace regularly, but revisiting my shelves to marvel at the alchemy of words is an undeniable comfort.