Food For Thought...

Title: Blue Camellia. Frances Parkinson Keyes. 1957
Found: Box of books - friend's move.

My imagination runs wild with this one... wedged tightly in between page 420 & page 421 (also known as the 10th to last page of the book) was a tightly folded scrap of paper that had been so pressed into it's spot I almost didn't realize it was there. As I unfolded it, I read this:

IV Girdle
Cat food
toilet paper
spam
dry milk
ham
pork & beans
baked potatos
chicken salad
pimento cheese

Hmmm...obviously someone's grocery list. But what is an iv girdle? I imagined some sort of 1950's "techno" weightloss appparatus type thing that one might wear. Something to do with tubes and stretchy fabric and blood pressure or push up bras.

I asked my husband if he might know what this iv girdle thing was. Upon his inspection of the list... he said it had to do with watching television. Hmm... interesting. An iv girdle for tv watching? Was this some sort of exercise routine...perhaps the Thigh Master of 1957? How would such a girdle work?

Easy, he said...it's called a TV Guide.

Ahhhh....

it's an honest mistake. See close-up. I am slighly disappointed though that it was not in fact an iv girdle. I was just on the verge of imagining what type of woman would buy pork & beans, cat food and a girdle all at once. But then, looking over the list again with my new not-quite-as-interesting information, I could not help but chuckle to myself that both ham and spam were on the list. Funny not only beacuse they rhyme - but funny since isn't there already ham in spam?

And the ship comes home...

The Book: The Lost Fleet. Barry Clifford. 2002.
Found: Library Book Sale


One of my husband's top five all-time books is The Whydah - by Barry Clifford, purchased for him , by me, on a whim at a Park Avenue bookstore in NYC over 10 years ago. It was non-fiction, which he mostly prefers, it was about innovation, about discovery, and about insurmountable odds. Three, actually four including the non-fiction part, of his favorite things. How could I go wrong? Oh yeah and there were pirates. I was definietly on to something!


The Lost Fleet was Clifford's second true-life expedition story
and according to my expeditioner - not quite as bequiling as the first. But for the lack of enchantment with the storyline, this book had a nice little sub-plot in the inscription:


"Happy 42nd! We'll always have Paris*
Anne


* It's true - Mr. P. and Paris, France"

A Day At The Fair...

The Book: Official Guide - New York World's Fair 1964/1965. By Time-Life Book Editors.
Found: Garage Sale


I grew up in New York so I have a penchant for any type of NYC literature. Plus, I have fond memories of driving by the giant (12- storys tall) NYC World's Fair "Unisphere"globe as a little kid on familly outings to the city. So naturally I would fall in love with this little gem . It's a 312 page souvenier program from the fair and contains a plethora of 60's era nostalgia. The ads are the best with their campy, self assured slogans. It's like a condensed episode of Mad Men...

A few of my favorites...

HONDA- "You meet the nicest people on a Honda."
DELTA - "The airline with the BIG JETS!"
CANADIAN CLUB WHISKEY- "Wherever you go...there it is! "The best in the house in 87 lands."
LINCOLN CONTINENTAL - "Notice the kind of person who enjoys it."
KENT CIGARETTES- "Filter...taste and pleasure. Kent satisfies best."
REVLON- "The world's fairest know... if its the finest in cosmetics it's by Revlon."
GENERAL CIGAR - "Meet me under the smoke rings."
CHEMICAL BANK- "From key men of today...to key men of tomorrow."
TWA - "See the World's Fair...then see the world, on TWA"


Tucked inside the middle of the guide I also found this slip of paper...

TO OUR PATRONS:

A box supper of chopped beef steak,
brown gravy, two vegetables, bread
and butter, pie coffee, tea or milk, price
$1.55 can be served to you at Johnson
City, Tennessee, at 6:25 P.M. If you
desire supper please advise the train
conductor.
Southern Railray System

Good Spelling...

Back in the day when teachers gave gifts...

Title: Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound. Alice B. Emerson. 1910

Found: In a box of old books we received as a thank you for helping a friend move.

Inside inscription:

Presented to Miss Ruby Hinton for securing the most perfect marks in her Spelling Class for Fall Term of school 1922.

By Her Teacher,

Golda Travelsted

The Book That Started The Blog...

This is the one that started the collection...

Title: The Food Lover's Guide to France. 1987. Patricia Wells

Found: Library Book Sale

Inside Front Cover Inscription:

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Allison - Of course I realize you are going to Germany and not France, but I remembered that you were following the Pritikin diet, and knowing the Germans, and their teutonic zeal for the low fat way of life, I thought you might venture into France at some point. This is a great guide for when you do. Merry Christmas & a safe voyage. Sarah Ziegler 1997

And a surprise 1993 New York Times article entitled

"Glimpses of the Real Provence: This region of hilltop medieval villages can be seen without crowds in early spring or fall" stuffed in the back third of the book.

So I started thinking.....

So here I am. A lover of, an addict of, a collector of... all things books. Fueling this habit for the past five years now, I have come to realize that, as of late, my compulsion has become two-fold.
I have loved books for longer then I can remember but only recently have I obessively begun to collect them....413 to date. Which averages out to about one "new to me" book every four days.

I collect all types.... meaning any subject that happens to beguile me that day. So my collection is quite eclectic. New books. Old books. Big books. Small books. And my most favorite...used books.

I say used books - in part, because they are cheaper than new books but also because they are two-for-oners. They not only tell the story writen on their pages but then they also TELL the STORY WRITTEN of their pages. Through inscriptions, through notes, through little drawings and diagrams, through makeshift bookmarks of castaway paper... used books offer a behind the scenes look into the lives of the readers who owned them.

It's these personal glimpses that have fascinated me for some time now. And upon discovering this more personal side of a book's character, I clearly realized that books serve many purposes for many people:

There are of course the traditional purposes:
1. They entertain.
2. They educate.
3. They inspire.
4. They help you escape. (Mentally, that is. Not literally. Although I am sure there is some great story out there in the world where one book actually aided/abbetted a real life escapee. If you have heard of such a story - please email me.)

Then there are the not so traditional purposes:
1. They act as file folders. For paper products. For used tickets, shopping receipts, love letters, pictures, prayer cards, maps, semi-important documents, money (more on that one later).
2. They act as paper towels. For life's little messes. For spilled coffee, melted chocolate, greasy fingers, rain storms, make-up smudges, bathtub accidents, chocolate ice cream, fingernail polish, the list goes on and on....
3. They act as chew toys. For teething children, spirited pets, out of control vacuum cleaners, hungry garbage disposals and furry basement creatures with long tails.
4. They act as building blocks. For space laden interior designers. For new, overwhelmed homeowners. For imaginative children. For strict school teachers. For working professionals with too much shelf space.
5. They act as notepads and scratch paper. For crayon drawings, for mathmatical figures, for telephone numbers for absent-minded doodling, for self validation, for to do lists, for unanticiapted reminders, for website addresses and for want to read book lists.
6. Further more...they act as weapons. In my case... for annoying eight year old sisters.

Clearly books are a help-mate for all of us in wonderfully unexpected ways. They make us laugh, they make us cry, they make us furrow our brows in puzzlement and arch them in awe. Most importantly they act as a tool for individuality.

Simply put, I am just enthralled by the things I have unexpectedly found in books over these past few years and I am equally enthralled by the person (or persons) behind each book. Who are these people that give books and read books and use books? How and why did their personal markings end up in the publics hands? And what do their personal little left-behinds tell us? About readers? About society? About ourselves?

Welcome to...the people that gives books.
Thoughts & comments encouraged!