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Book SaleJuly 31, 2009 This afternoon I went down to the West Tisbury Library's annual book sale. Actually I went down there twice. It's held at the West Tisbury School, an easy walk from where I live, so the first time I went down with Travvy. I tied Trav to a tree and he quickly made it clear that he was going to caterwaul like a baby with a wet diaper as long as I was out of sight. So we went home, I left him on the deck, and back I went to the school. The sale takes up the entire gym. Books as far as the eye can see, sorted into categories, arranged on tables, each with a sign proclaiming its category. Books are also laid out under the tables, in cardboard boxes or the lids of cardboard boxes. Books, books, books. One side of my mind was considering all the work that went into the writing of each of those books; the other side was thinking, Who cares about any of this shit? My primary motive was to see if I could find any out-of-print Joanna Russ books, but since science fiction wasn't sectioned off from other fiction I quickly gave that up. I did spot a paperback of Karen Joy Fowler's Sarah Canary (already have the hardcover) and, over by the wall, a William Gibson (not interested). Recognizing old friends was a major pleasure, like Paule Marshall and Alice Walker. I spotted an Alexander McCall Smith, one of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books that I haven't read, but decided that I didn't really want to buy it. Perry Garfinkel's Buddha book was on the Vineyard authors table. Perry was Calendar editor at the Martha's Vineyard Times when I was running the copy desk. He had National Geographic connections, out of which this book came. The idea of Perry writing about spirituality of any kind cracks me up, and I actually considered buying the book, but it was priced at $2.50 (most hardcovers were $1) and my curiosity wasn't worth that much. What I did come home with: Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It. Maclean's Young Men and Fire blew me away; it was also indirectly responsible for introducing me to the music of James Keelaghan, whose "Cold Missouri Waters" I heard on the radio circa 1997 and immediately recognized its narrator, Wag Dodge, as the smoke jumper Maclean had written about in Young Men and Fire. I always meant to read Maclean's acclaimed A River Runs Through It, but never got around to it. I snagged the mass-market movie-tie-in edition for 25 cents. As a bonus I got a photocopy of the New York Times review of the movie, dated October 18, 1992, with some competent doodles on the back. Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead. Long time ago, in my Lammas Bookstore days, I sold Storyteller. Philistine that I am, what I remember most clearly was its unusual trim size. I do remember liking it, and Ceremony, though I don't remember much about either. This looked worth a try. $1. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's The Hidden Life of Dogs. Another one I meant to read when it was new and never did, maybe because I read an excerpt somewhere and that told me enough to blather around it in public. I liked the author's Reindeer Moon, a novel about paleolithic Siberia, much more than Jean Auel's much more celebrated Clan of the Cave Bear, but damned if I can remember why. Hidden Life of Dogs was published the year before Rhodry was born. I have a hell of a lot more firsthand experience of dogs now than I did then. We'll see how it goes, and how it stacks up with the Coppingers' book. It set me back $2. Companies We Keep, by John Abrams. John Abrams is a local saint. I don't trust saints of any kind. Abrams runs South Mountain Company, a construction company right here on Martha's Vineyard. Construction companies and real estate agents rank high on my list of Enemies of the Island, though of course they're generally assumed to be the backbone of the economy. If vivisectionists and pimps were the backbone of your economy, would you consider that a good thing? I figure I ought to read the book. If I decide he really is a saint, you can shoot me. If I don't, this should give me ideas for Squatters' Speakeasy, if the universe ever gives me a green light to go back to fiction. Besides, it only cost a buck. Angela Carter's Burning Your Boats, her collected short stories. Carter is much admired by several writers I much admire, but I've spent little time with her work. She died at age 51, which makes me grateful that I didn't and am still slogging onward. Checking out her short fiction is the least I can do. $1. Not a bad haul for $5.25, and there's actually a pretty good chance that I'll read 'em all.
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