Old Books And My Place Amongst Them; Our Haunted Bookshop Taking Shape

1940's Canadian Folk Art That Has All The Attributes Of A Neat Period Art Piece; The Horse, The Cowboy and The Nonchalant Lady Of The Cabin. Just Acquired This Stan Hodgins  Original Near Gravenhurst.

OLD BOOKS AND MY PLACE IN THEM - "YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO NEED A GOOD BOOK"

A RETURN TO "THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP," BUT THIS TIME IT'S MINE - THE AUTUMN OF MY CONTENT

     SUZANNE HAD TO REMIND ME, EVERSO KINDLY, THIS MORNING, THAT IT WAS OUR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. WE WERE MARRIED IN SEPTEMBER 1983, WHICH MAKES THIS OUR THIRTY-FIRST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. GOSH, HAS IT BEEN THAT LONG? WE WERE MARRIED BY REVEREND HORST RUEGER, AT THE WINDERMERE UNITED CHURCH, AND SUZANNE WAS DRIVEN TO THE VILLAGE LANDMARK, IN HER 1963 BUICK WILDCAT CONVERTIBLE. THE MASTER OF CEREMONIES, THAT NIGHT, AT THE HOLIDAY HOUSE RECEPTION, IN BRACEBRIDGE, WAS DAVE WHITESIDE, SUZANNE'S TEACHING COLLEAGUE AT BRACEBRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL. SPEAKING ON BEHALF OF THE BRIDE, WAS JIM MACLEOD, THE FORMER MANAGER / GOLF PROFESSIONAL, OF THE WINDERMERE GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB, WHERE SHE HAD ONCE BEEN EMPLOYED. JOHN RUTHERFORD, OUR FAVORITE BAND CONDUCTOR, HAD ARRANGED THE MUSIC AT THE CHURCH, AND HAD NO SHORTAGE OF INSPIRATIONAL CHATTER, DURING THE RECEPTION. JOHN WAS LIKE THAT, EVEN AT HIS MOST CONSERVATIVE. IF YOU WANTED AN INTERESTING, CULTURALLY ENHANCED GET-TOGETHER, JOHN WAS THE PERFECT INCLUSION. EVERYBODY LOVED HIM, AND HUNG OFF HIS EVERY WORD. OF COURSE, IT DID MINIMIZE THE MARRIED COUPLE A LITTLE BIT. THE ODDSMAKERS AMONGST MY FRIENDS, BACK THEN, ONLY GAVE US THREE YEARS AS A MARRIED COUPLE. IF I HADN'T STOPPED DRINKING, AND HANGING AROUND WITH MY MATES AT PUBS, HOCKEY RINKS, BASEBALL DIAMONDS, FOOTBALL GRID-IRONS, AND THE PRESS CLUB, AT THE BRACEBRIDGE ALBION, YES, INDEED, WE WOULD HAVE GONE OUR SEPARATE WAYS, BEFORE THE FULL UNWINDING OF THE 1980'S. FOR INSTANCE, I TRIED TO MAKE A DEAL WITH HER, TO PLAY MENS RECREATIONAL FOOTBALL THE NEXT MORNING....ON WHAT'S USUALLY KNOWN, FOR NEWLYWEDS, AS THE HONEYMOON. "THE GUYS NEED ME," I TOLD HER, BUT THERE WAS NO RELENTING THE OPINION, AND ULTIMATUM, THAT IF I DROVE FROM THE WINDERMERE COTTAGE WE WERE STAYING, (HER FATHER'S), IT WOULD BE A VERY SHORT MARRIED LIFE, TO BRAG ABOUT, IN THE AFTER-GAME BEER SOCIAL. I HAD TO BREAK IT TO THE LADS, BRANT SCOTT, HIS BROTHER GIL, KEN SILCOX, ANDY NELAN, RON BOYER AND SCOTT MCLELLAN (ALSO MY BEST MAN), THAT I COULDN'T COME OUT TO PLAY. I GOT OVER IT FAST, WHEN SUZANNE AND I CANOED AROUND LAKE ROSSEAU THE NEXT MORNING, WHICH WAS ALSO A LOT OF FUN. WE USED TO HUNT FOR OLD SUNKEN BOTTLES AND CROCKS. YOU SEE, THAT'S HOW FAR BACK OUR ANTIQUE INTERESTS STRETCH; WE WERE BOTH COLLECTORS OF OLD MEDICINE, SODA AND CROCKERY BOTTLES. WE WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER, WOULDN'T YOU SAY.
    SUZANNE AND I SQUABBLE ALL THE TIME; SHE ACCUSES ME OF BEING A TOOL, AND A CLUTTERING MANIAC. I SUGGEST SHE NEEDS TO GO TO A CLOWN SCHOOL TO LEARN HOW TO LAUGH AT LIFE. WE'VE FOUND A BALANCE, AND ALTHOUGH IT WAS PRECARIOUS THROUGH THE TIMES WE WERE BROKE, AND HANGING BY A THREAD TO HOUSE AND PROPERTY, WE NEVER BACKED DOWN FROM LIFE'S CHALLENGES. IT'S THE SAME TODAY. I TOLD HER THIS MORNING, "JUST THINK DEAR, THE FACT WE GOT MARRIED, MEANS THERE ARE TWO OTHER LUCKY PEOPLE OUT THERE, AND THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW LUCKY." (THEY COULD HAVE BEEN MARRIED TO US INSTEAD). SUZANNE AND I ARE BOTH INTENSE PEOPLE, AND WORK IS OUR HOBBY. SHE'S ONLY HAD TO THROW ME OUT OF THE HOUSE ONCE, AND EVEN THEN, SHE FELT SORRY FOR ME, WHEN SHE LOOKED OUT, SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT, AND I WAS SHIVERING IN A LAWN CHAIR, BEER IN HAND, SOAKED WITH RAIN, TALKING TO MYSELF IN THE LAMPLIGHT, OF OUR OLD RESIDENCE, ON BRACEBRIDGE'S QUEBEC STREET. SOME OF OUR FIGHTS HAVE BEEN AS MOOT, AS BEING OVER A BAG TO ROAST THE TURKEY, AT THANKSGIVING, AND MY REFUSAL TO TRIM MY BEARD FOR A FAMILY SOCIABLE. NOT BIG STUFF. THE KIND OF LIFE-MOMENTS, THAT CAN BE OVERCOME, AFTER SETTLING DOWN WITH ARMS LOCKED, ON SIDE BY SIDE CHAIRS, A GLASS OF MAKE-BELIEVE WINE, AND A COUPLE OF GOOD BOOKS TO READ, SITTING ON THE VERANDAH OVERLOOKING THE BOG. I HOPE ANDREW AND ROBERT CAN FIND SUITABLE PARTNERS, WHO ARE AS FORGIVING AS THEIR MOTHER HAS BEEN TO ME; BECAUSE AS FAR AS CONDUCT, I'VE EARNED TWICE THE DEMERITS, FOR BAD BEHAVIOR, AND SHE STILL ALLOWS ME TO LIVE HERE.

     I HAVE NEVER SURRENDERED AS A BOOK COLLECTOR, OR SELLER; BUT I HAVE HAD A FEW LENGTHY HIATUS PERIODS, WHEN SOME OTHER ASPECT OF THE ANTIQUE ENTERPRISE, TOOK PRECEDENT. IT'S THE CASE, THAT WHAT SELLS, IS WHAT GETS RE-INVESTMENT. BOOKS LIKE MANY OTHER COLLECTABLES, CAN RUN HOT AND COLD, AND YOU NEVER GET MUCH OF A WARNING WHEN THE CHANGE IS COMING DOWN THE PIKE. AS A RULE, I USUALLY GET STUCK WITH YESTERDAY'S NEWS. IT'S A MONEY LOSING SITUATION, UNLESS YOU'RE WILLING TO HOLD OUT UNTIL THE CYCLE CHANGES ONCE AGAIN. TRYING TO UNLOAD THE LEFTOVERS, IS UNPLEASANT. IT'S WHEN THE PASSION FOR YOUR COLLECTING TAKES ITS BIGGEST HIT. UNLESS OF COURSE, YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT SELLING. I HAVE HAD TO DOWNSIZE MY BOOK COLLECTION ABOUT TEN TIMES IN THE PAST TWENTY YEARS. SOME TIMES BOOKS SELL IN QUANTITY, DAY AFTER DAY, AND THEN, AS IF ALL THE READERS SUDDENLY DRIED UP, WE WILL GO QUITE A WHILE WITHOUT SELLING ANYTHING WITH PRINT INSIDE. EVEN A POSTCARD. TODAY, IN THE RETAIL ENVIRONS OF 2014, WE HAVE FOUND FAR MORE CONSISTENCY WITH OUR BOOKS, WHICH IS STILL A SHADOW OF THE COLLECTION I ONCE OWNED, AND SOLD OFF IN THE NECESSITY OF MAKING A PROFIT, "SOONER THAN LATER," QUIPS SUZANNE. OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, I HAVE BEEN MAKING A REBOUND EFFORT, TO BUILD-BACK MY FORMER COLLECTION, BUT THIS TIME, INSTEAD OF STUFFING THEM INTO OUR HOUSE AT BIRCH HOLLOW, OFFERING THEM FOR SALE THROUGH OUR MUSKOKA ROAD ANTIQUE SHOP. IN OTHER WORDS, KNOCK OFF THE HOARDING, AND MAKE OUR GOOD FINDS, OUT ON THE HUSTINGS, AVAILABLE TO OUR CUSTOMERS. SO IT HAS INVOLVED A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT. A BIBLIOPHILE ON THE VERGE OF MANIA, FINDS IT HARD TO LET GO OF THEIR TREASURES. I STILL HAVE A PROBLEM LETTING GO OF CERTAIN BOOKS, BUT I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHY THIS IS THE CASE. THE BOOKS YOU'LL READ ABOUT TODAY, THAT I DO PLAN TO DROP ONTO A SHELF IN MY STUDY, ARE RESOURCE TEXTS "ABOUT BOOKS" AND HAVE VERY LITTLE MARKET VALUE. WHICH IS GOOD FOR ME, BECAUSE THIS HAS BEEN A MAJOR INFLUENCE IN THE PAST. I STILL HANG ONTO BOOKS THAT I CAN USE FOR OUR HERITAGE SERVICES, AND RESEARCH FOR THIS BLOG.
     THE POINT IS, AS A VETERAN BOOK COLLECTOR, DEALER, I HAVE RESTORED MUCH OF MY MOJO; THE PASSION TO BUY AND SELL BOOKS FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR READERS. IF IT GETS ONE SIDED, AND MORE BOOKS COME HOME THAN GO TO THE STORE, SUZANNE HAS THREATENED TO CALL ME ON IT! SHE'S A KIND LADY, AND LET'S ME GET AWAY WITH STUFF, LIKE HANGING ONTO BOOKS EVEN IF IT MEANS A COMPROMISE TO HER STANDARD OF LIVING.
     I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEN I WAS GIVEN A COPY OF GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES, AS A KID, JUST THAT IT WAS AT MY BEDSIDE UP UNTIL THE TIME I WENT OFF TO UNIVERSITY; THE PARALLEL OCCASION, WHEN MY MOTHER MERLE, DECIDED TO CLEAN OUT MY ROOM OF ANYTHING THAT REFLECTED CHILDHOOD, AND GAVE IT ALL TO A COUPLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS. YUP, EVEN THAT CHERISHED COPY OF GRIMM.
     LATER IN TODAY'S BLOG YOU WILL FIND ANOTHER REFERENCE TO THE BOOK OF GRIMM, AND READ ABOUT A CHILD WHO HAD AN EQUAL AFFECTION FOR STORIES OF GOOD TRIUMPHING OVER EVIL. THE BOOK WAS AN ESCAPE FOR ME, AS I WAS IN ALMOST CONSTANT NEED OF ADVENTURE. THE WAY MY MOTHER LOOKED AT IT, IF MY ADVENTURES CAME IN A BOOK, I WOULDN'T BE DROWNED IN THE RIVER, OR KILLED BY A FALL OFF A CLIFF; ACTING THESE ADVENTURE SCENARIOS OUT, BEYOND THE SAFETY OF OUR APARTMENT. IN FACT, THESE STORIES, ACTUALLY INSPIRED ME TO ESCAPE OUR RESIDENCE. AT NIGHT, I WOULD READ STORIES FROM THE BOOK, UNTIL AFTER MIDNIGHT, SOME I ACTUALLY MEMORIZED WORD FOR WORD. I'VE FORGOTTEN THEM NOW, BUT IT WAS THE BOOK THAT IMPROVED MY READING AND COMPREHENSION SKILLS. IT HONED MY IMAGINATION. THERE WERE STORIES FOR EVERY OCCASION, AND EVERY SEASON. IT WAS A BOOK OF STORIES THAT COULD ELEVATE ME FROM BOREDOM, AND THIS IS WHAT I SUFFERED FROM MOST IN MY YOUTH. I ALWAYS NEEDED TO LOOK FORWARD TO SOMETHING, AND THIS WAS ONE OF THE RESOURCES I USED, AMONGST SEVERAL OTHER BOOKS OF STORIES SUITED TO YOUNG READERS; TO ESCAPE IN MIND, WHEN IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE, TO SNEAK PAST THE GUARD, MY MOTHER, TO GO OUTSIDE. IT WASN'T MUCH OF A LIBRARY, AND AS MY PARENTS ONLY HAD ENOUGH MONEY FOR FOOD, BEVERAGE (MY DAD GOT HIS BEER EACH WEEK) AND SHELTER, THERE WASN'T TOO MUCH LEFT OVER TO BUY THEIR SON BOOKS. BUT THROUGH THE GENEROSITY OF SOME KIND RELATIVE HOWEVER, I GOT MY COPY OF GRIMM'S TALES. IT WAS THE PORTAL OF ESCAPE FOR QUITE A FEW YEARS, AND I USED IT CONSTANTLY. I THINK, EVEN TODAY, I HAVE A LOT OF THE GRIMM TRADITION IN ME, AND ITS INFLUENCES WHEN I WRITE. (I WATCH THE TELEVISION SHOW, "GRIMM" WHICH IS A LITTLE EXCESSIVE, AND VIOLENT, BUT KIND OF A NEAT STORY-LINE JUST THE SAME). THE STORIES ARE TIMELESS, AS TO OUR CONTEMPORARY INTERESTS IN FICTION. THERE'S A LOT TO BE LEARNED FROM THESE STORIES. SONS ANDREW AND ROBERT HAD A LARGE SELECTIONS OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS, AND SUZANNE AND I WOULD READ FROM THEM EACH NIGHT, AT BEDTIME. I USED TO FALL ASLEEP MID PAGE, SO SUZANNE READ TO THEM MORE THAN I DID. THE POINT IS, THEY NEVER WENT TO BED WITHOUT A STORY. THEY LOVED THEIR BOOKS, AND TOOK TURNS PICKING OUT THEIR FAVORITE STORIES.
     WE KEPT THEIR STORY-BOOKS, AND THEY HAVE TELL-TALE BITE MARKS, MADE DURING TEETHING, AND THERE ARE SOME RIPPED PAGES, BECAUSE THEY WERE KIND OF HARD ON THEIR POSSESSIONS. BUT THEY STILL HAVE THEIR INTEGRITY, AND OCCASIONALLY I BRING THEM OUT, FOR A LITTLE REFRESHER COURSE MYSELF. I LIKED THE STORIES, AND THEY MADE ME SO COMFORTABLE AND RELAXED, I FELL NATURALLY, AND PEACEFULLY TO SLEEP WITHOUT ANY OTHER INDUCEMENT. THE GRIMM FAIRY TALES HAD DONE THE SAME. NOT BECAUSE THE STORIES WERE BORING, BUT BECAUSE IT WAS A BOOK THAT HAD ITS OWN UNIQUE PULSE, AND READ, SUCH THAT I FELT SAFE, AND IN THE GOOD HANDS OF STORY SPINNERS.

     THERE ARE ONLY A FEW LITERARY COLLECTIONS, IN NEATLY, IDENTICALLY PUBLISHED VOLUMES, THAT I AM WILLING TO PUT IN OUR BOOK SHOP. THERE WERE MILLIONS OF THESE SETS CREATED, AS VERY LARGE COLLECTIONS OF AUTHORS' WORK, AND WHILE USUALLY IN ELABORATE COVERS, LOOKING VERY RARE AND IMPORTANT ON FIRST GLANCE, ARE USUALLY PRINTED ON LESSER QUALITY PAPER, MEANING GENERALLY, OF LESS VALUE. I HAVE A 1880'S COLLECTION OF THE "WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING," THAT LOOK ANCIENT AND WONDERFULLY AGED ON THE OUTSIDE, BUT THE PAPER USED FOR THE TEXT IS TURNING TO POWDER. THESE BOOKS PUBLISHED AS MULTI-VOLUME COMPENDIUMS, OF GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE, OR JUST THE WORK OF AUTHORS LIKE SIR WALTER SCOTT, WERE PRODUCED TO MAKE MONEY. ALL PUBLISHING, FROM THE BEGINNING, HAD A FISCAL SIDE, BUT THESE MASSIVE COLLECTIONS, WERE LESS ABOUT THE SPREAD OF LITERATURE TO THE MASSES, AS MAKING SOME BIG MONEY FOR THE PUBLISHERS, AND THE SALESMAN WHO TRAVELLED AROUND TRYING TO FLOG THEM TO FAMILIES WITHOUT HOME LIBRARIES. UNLESS THERE IS SOME RARITY TO THE COLLECTION, WHICH CAN BE THE CASE, I GENERALLY AVOID GETTING INVOLVED IN VOLUME SETS. IF IT'S A "MAKERS OF CANADA" SERIES, I WILL ALWAYS PICK THESE UP, AND THEY WILL SELL, TO FLEDGLING HISTORIANS, AND STUDENTS OF CANADIAN HISTORY, IF PRICED SENSIBLY. FIRST EDITIONS ARE A DIFFERENT STORY. MOST COMPENDIUMS, IN VOLUMES, ARE JUST SPACE KILLERS FOR MOST BOOK SELLERS, AND MOST BUYERS TODAY DON'T HAVE THE SPACE FOR TWELVE TO TWENTY VOLUME COLLECTIONS. WE HAVE A LOT OF CUSTOMERS WHO LIVE IN SMALL APARTMENTS AND CONDOMINIUMS, WHO LIKE HAVING BOOK CASES, BUT NOT THE KIND, BIG AND STURDY ENOUGH, TO HANDLE SOME OF THESE LARGE SETS, WHICH CAN WEIGH AS MUCH AS A HUNDRED POUNDS. POINT IS, I AM THE SAME, AND I'M EVEN RELUCTANT TO PURCHASE SMALL FORMAT COLLECTIONS, BECAUSE I FIND THEM HARD TO READ WITHOUT BINOCULARS.
     SO WHEN WE GOT A SMALL COLLECTION OF BOOKS THE OTHER DAY, FROM FRIENDS OF OURS, I DISMISSED ONE WHOLE BOX, THAT CONTAINED A 1934, 12 VOLUME COLLECTION ENTITLED "THE POCKET UNIVERSITY." IT'S ALL ABOUT BOOKS AND AUTHORS, AND WHAT THREW ME A CURVE, WAS THAT I'D NEVER SEEN, OR READ ABOUT THIS COLLECTION BEFORE. I'VE BEEN IN THE OLD BOOK BUSINESS FOR ALMOST HALF MY LIFE, AND THIS "DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY," PUBLICATION, FROM GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, WAS KIND OF SURPRISING. IT MUST NOT HAVE BEEN PRINTED IN THE GREAT NUMBERS OF SOME OTHER MULTI VOLUME SETS. WHAT REALLY COMPELLED ME, TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY, WAS TWOFOLD. THEY ARE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOKS TO CIVILIZATION, AND SECONDLY, ONE OF THE CONTRIBUTING EDITORS, WAS MY FAVORITE WRITER (ABOUT BOOKS), CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, THE AUTHOR OF "THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP." THIS WAS THE TEXT THAT REALLY GOT ME INTO SELLING BOOKS. PREVIOUS, I HAD PURCHASED BOOKS FOR PERSONAL USE, AND FOR THE JOY OF HAVING A HOUSE FILLED WITH LOTS OF READING MATERIAL. I DON'T READ AS MUCH AS I USED TO, BUT I'M STILL ABOVE AVERAGE FOR BOOKS CONSUMED EACH MONTH. I WRITE MORE THAN I READ THESE DAYS, AND I'M SURE THIS IS OBVIOUS, IF YOU FOLLOW MY DAILY BLOGS. ONE OF THE MOST DEFINING STATEMENTS ABOUT BOOK COLLECTING, CAME FROM MY OLD FRIEND, DAVE BROWN, WHO, DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH, CHECKED HIMSELF OUT OF HOSPITAL, TO GO WITH FRIENDS TO HIS FAVORITE RESTAURANT, SITUATED ACROSS FROM HIS FAVORITE OLD BOOK SHOP. HIS FRIENDS TOLD HIM TO GO AND LOOK AROUND THE BOOK SHOP, AND WHEN HE WAS FINISHED, TO COME BACK TO THE RESTAURANT FOR DINNER. THEY WERE JUST GOING TO HAVE A DRINK IN THE MEANTIME. WHEN DAVE FINALLY ARRIVED, HE SAID, WITHOUT ANY COAXING, "WELL, YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO NEED A GOOD BOOK." HE HAD FOUND ONE, AND MADE THE PURCHASE. HIS LAST. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH OF IT, WAS READ IN THOSE SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH, BUT IT WAS MORE IMPORTANTLY, A FINAL STATEMENT, ABOUT HOW MUCH BOOKS HAD MEANT TO HIM OVER A LIFETIME. AND BY THE WAY, HIS FIRST, AND FAVORITE BOOKS, RIGHT TO THE END, WERE THE THORNTON BURGESS ANIMAL STORIES, IN A SET, GIVEN AS A GIFT, PURCHASED BY DAVID'S DOCTOR FATHER, ONE CHRISTMAS IN CHILDHOOD. DAVE'S WIFE LEFT HIM, WHEN HE WAS ASKED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN BOOKS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP. HE CHOSE THE BOOKS. I'M NOT AS HARDCORE ABOUT BOOKS AS DAVE, BUT I COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEIR FRIENDLY CLUTTER, AT HOME, AND HERE IN OUR GRAVENHURST SHOP.
      I DECIDED TO KEEP THIS SMALL FORMAT COLLECTION, OF TWELVE VOLUMES, BECAUSE OF WHAT THEY REPRESENT OF LITERATURE AND ESPECIALLY, THE JOY OF BOOKS. EVEN AN OLD BOOKMAN NEEDS REJUVENATION (IF NOT RESUSITATION) NOW AND AGAIN, AND THESE ARE HANDY, AND FIT IN A SMALL SECTION OF CUPBOARD FOR EASY ACCESS. THEY ARE WRITTEN AND ORGANIZED SENSIBLY, AND I FIND THEM EASY TO SCAN THROUGH, FOR USABLE QUOTATIONS, WHEN I HAPPEN TO BE IN THE MOOD FOR LITERARY DIRECTION.
     "The Pocket University, this present series of books, furnishes the busy man (woman) with precisely such an introduction to literature. It presents prose, fiction, poetry, biography, history, science, travel and the other departments of writing, through well chosen examples. It claims to be nothing more than an introduction to the side and golden domain of letters, but it does claim to be a highly practable introduction, full of congent hints, as to what is best worth reading in the world's great library of books," writes, William Rose Benet, in January of 1934. Sometimes, being surrounded by books, can be stifling, in a strange way, especially when I'm looking for a specific, yet unknown source of inspiration; for these blogs for one thing. Having use of a set of books like this, assists my insatiable appetite for more leads, which even today, only took a few minutes, searching through several of the volumes. The collection, which actually contains thirteen books, one as the introduction, is only worth about ten bucks, but what it contains of significant quotations, can infill my needs for a few years down the road.
     "This small book which you hold in your hand was begun five thousand years ago. We might, of course, say it was begun at the beginning of the world, but it seems better to take off somewhere near the time when the first ancestor of the modern book appeared, bearing about as much relation to books as we know them, as the three-toed ancestor of the horse, bears to the rapidly disappearing horse of the present time. The history of bookmaking proper began when a man (perhaps because a woman told him to), first, scratched marks on an oyster shell or a shoulder blade and put them aside so he could read them later, or so she could read them or so friends of theirs could read them. The story of how this book came from the oyster shell or that shoulder blade, is a long one and involves many materials and many processes, one of which, we venture to say, was, next to the invention of the alphabet, the most momentous single innovation in the history of mankind. We mean the invention of printing, the handmaiden of all others," notes the text of the introduction.
     "Printing changed all this so completely that it came to mean more to the world, than any of the great revolutions - the French, the Russian, the Chinese, the Industrial, or any other. And yet it slipped into the world quietly. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was, in a sense, nothing new. It was simply an easy way of doing something that had been done for many centuries. It looked, in its first days, very much like hand-writing, and was, indeed, a substitute for it. But it meant that the accumulated knowledge of the past, could be in the hands of all people instead of a few. It meant democracy in thinking, and it meant that one of the most delightful ways of earning one's bread and butter - that is, making books - was henceforth to be in the hands of a large army of enthusiasts. From the beginning the men who have made books, have enjoyed making them. It is fun to be a publisher.
     "From the beginning, the men (and we include the women), who have written books, have also enjoyed  writing them. It is fun to be an author. You may hear one say, or you see it printed under his (her) name somewhere, that he stutters while he writes. No doubt he does, but the suffering belongs with those pleasures born of pain, like love. Not for a King's ransom would we be without it.
     "It is the fashion now, if one can believe the advertisements, to be sorry for the reader, but the plain truth is that of all those connected with books, he is the one who has the best time, for his position carries none of the responsibility that goes with publishing them, and none of the suffering that goes with writing them. He is warned, nowadays, that he is to be smothered with books. We can imagine much worse things happening to him, but if he has even so much as a thimbleful of sense, we see no reason why this fate should overtake him. To read all the books that have ever been published, would be like trying to have a personal acquaintance with all the hundred million people in the world today. It isn't possible and wouldn't be desirable if it were.
     "There are so many books being published (1934), that if a man set out to keep up with the ones that are coming off the presses now, disregarding the past completely, he would have to read some twenty-odd volumes a day without stopping for Sundays. If he disregarded the present, and turned to the past, he would be faced with quite as bewildering an array. The big signposts - names like Shelley and Keats and Dickens and Thakeray - are by themselves no great help, for Shelley wrote a good deal of rather bad poetry, and so did Keats, and Dickens wrote much that is not so good as the rest, and so did Thackeray. But the fact that there are 1,747,999,999 people in the world, besides yourself (1934 census), does not bother you. The ones that really belong to you manage to find you. Your friends drift casually and delightfully into your life (isn't that the way books come), and you comfort yourself with the fact that there are so many charming people in the world that it is not necessary to worry your head about the others. Usually a glance is enough to tell you whether you want a further acquaintance with a person or not. So with books. It should not take you ore than a split second to decide whether or not you might enjoy a volume called 'Thermionic Vacuum Tube Circuits.' All that you need to remember as you reach out your hand for a book is that there are endless other books where that one came from, and you can never go bankrupt on this score, no matter how extravagant you are. It is one of the exceedingly few pleasures that age cannot wither nor custom stale."

"THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP" AND WHERE I DWELL FAVORABLY, ENJOYABLE TODAY

     "It is a wonderful profession, that of book guide, if we are to believe Mr. Mifflin, Christopher Morley's prince of booksellers, proprietor of 'The Haunted Bookshop.' 'Certainly,' he says, 'running a second-hand bookstore (this is the vantage point from which he works), is a pretty humble calling, but I've missed a grain of glory with it, in my own imagination at any rate. You see, books contain he thoughts and dreams of men, their hopes and strivings and all their immortal parts. 'It's in books that most of us learn how splendidly worthwhile life is...Books are the immortality of the race, the father and mother of most that is worth while cherishing in our hearts. To spread good books about, to sow them on fertile minds, to propagate understanding and a carefulness of life and beauty, isn't that a high enough mission for man?"
     "Long ago I fell back on books as the only permanent consolers. They are the only stainless and unimpeachable achievement of the human race. It saddens me to think that I shall have to die, with thousands of books unread, that would have given me an unblemished happiness. I will tell you a secret. I have never read 'King Lear,' and have purposely refrained from doing so. If I were ever very ill, I would only need to say to myself, 'You can't die yet; you haven't read Lear.' That would bring me around. I know it would. Living in a bookshop," writes Christopher Morley, "is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world - the brains of men (women). I can spend a rainy afternoon reading, and my mind works itself up to such a passion and anxiety over mortal problems as almost unmans me. It is terribly nerve-racking. Surround a man with Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau, Chesterton, Shaw, Nietzsche, and George Ade - would you wonder at his getting excited. What would happen to a cat if she had to live in a room tapestried with catnip? She would go crazy?"
     "But Mr. Mifflin is not dogmatist when it comes to classifying good books. 'There is no such thing, abstractly, as a good book,' in his opinion. 'A book is good only when it meets some human hunger or refutes some human error. A book that is good for me would very likely be punk for you.' If you mind needs phosphorous, Mr. Mifflin recommends one thing; if it needs a whiff of 'strong air, blue and cleansing, from hilltops and primrose valleys,' he recommends something else, and if it needs a tonic of iron and wine, he has something else still to recommend.' 'There is no man (woman),' this is a firm conviction of Mr. Mifflin's, 'so grateful as the man to whom you have given just the book his (her) soul needed."
     "The number of books that one has is not important. One of the most frightful libraries we know, is a big one, and one of the most charming consisted of only a single book. The book (we shall take the second library first), belonged to a little German girl who worked out West, in a Quarryman's Hotel. O'Henry tells the story in 'A Chaparral Prince,' and this is the way he describes the little girl the night after her library was taken away from her.
     "The day's work was over. 'Heavy odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a depressing fog about the house. Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. She was eleven years old, thin and ill-nourished. Her back and limbs were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her. They had taken away Grimm. Always, at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken fresh courage and strength from Grim.
     "To whatever tale she read, she found an analogy in her own condition. The woodcutter's lost child, the unhappy goose-girl, the persecuted step-daughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch's hut - all these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchen-maid, of the Quarryman's Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst, came the good fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue. So, here in the ogre's castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena, had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Malone had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can anyone only eleven years old, living away from one's mama, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once, and you will see what a difficult thing it is."
     "Leona decided that it was too difficult for her - but that has nothing to do with the other library, the frightful one. It is described in 'Vera,' by 'Elizabeth.' Wemyss, who owned it, had brought his second wife, Lucy, back to his home where he had lived with his first wife, Vera. They were in the room which contained the library. The other end was filled with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and the books, in neat rows, and uniform editions, were packed so tightly in the shelves that no one but an unusually determined reader would have the energy to wrench one out. Reading was evidently not encouraged for not only were the books shut in behind glass doors, but the doors were kept locked, and the key hung on Wemyss's watch chain; a forbidding library, owned, one does not need to know any more about him than this, by a forbidding and unlikable man.
     "Lucy, on the contrary, 'was accustomed to the most careless familiarity in intercourse with books, to books loose from everywhere; books over-flowing out of their shelves, books in every room, instantly accessible books, friendly books, books used to being read aloud, with their hospitable pages falling open at a touch. She was one of those who don't like the feel of prize books, in their hands, and all of the Wemys's books might have been presented as handsome; their edges - she couldn't see them, but she was sure, they were marbled. They wouldn't open easily, and one's thumbs would have to do a lot of tiring holding while one's eyes tried to peep at the words tucked away toward the central crease. These were books which one took no liberties. She couldn't imagine idly turning their pages in some lazy position out on the grass. Besides, their pages wouldn't be idly turned; they would be, she was sure, obstinate with expensiveness, stiff with leather and gold of their covers."
     The text continues, "This is how the second wife felt about Wemyss's Library, of which he himself was so very proud. The first wife was dead but the books in her room bore expensive testimony to the way it had affected her - Hardy and Charlotte Bronte, dozens of Baedeker's and other guide books suggested a tiredness, such a - yes, such a wish for escape. There was more Hardy, - all of the poems this time in one volume. There was Pater - 'The Child in the House and Emerald Uthwart -' that peculiar dwelling on death in them, that queer, fascinated inability to get away from it, that beautiful but sick wistfulness. There was a book called "In the Strange South Seas'; and another about some island in the Pacific; and another about life in the desert; and another about life in the desert; and one or two others, more of the flamboyant guidebook order, describing remote, glowing places..."

     The book notes that, "The most interesting libraries we know, are those which have grown naturally out of the personalities of their owners, and have developed as those personalities have developed."
     "Without warning, the God sprang above the forest and charged. They could not help seeing him. He trailed streamers of sun. Eyes like small suns blazed from his belly and his arms. He howled like wolves. Both knew they would die now, for they had seen and would remember. The god would drop and shred them and strew pieces of them across the hillside. Both fell forward and covered their heads. Rani screamed with his face buried and his whole body writhing as if such puny violence could deter the huge violence of the god. Asa was shaking too, but he had determined to die fighting. Perhaps he would take the god with him, for he knew that gods also died; he had seen their ocher corpses.
     "He twisted away from Rani and scrambled crablike across the clearing screaming his war cry. He was pummeled by blasts from the god's wings, deafened by the shrieks and thunder of the god's voices. He fell, rolled, and rose on one knee with his lance ready, looking up through grasses lashed by the buffering wings and through dust spewing so high it screened and distorted the hurtling god himself. He saw the glare of fierce eyes, and the claws hurled and extended like fists, and the green scales peeling from the body. in that maelstrom he saw a face staring through a hole in the god's body, a huge-eyed face tangled in the guts and organs of the god. And he saw too - there was no mistaking it - his grandfather's tree-mark on the god's flank.
     "Then the god was gone as suddenly as he had come. He passed over them and dropped behind the trees to the east. Wind cleared his dust and the acrid stench of him. His clamor faded. Rani's arms wrapped his head, and he was still screaming into the moss for his mother, thrashing as if he would shrink and disappear lizardlike into some crevasse. When Asa touched his elbow, the boy shrieked for mercy. 'It's only me! It's Asa!"
      (Taken from the 1988 compendium of three books, known as the "Erthring Cycle," including the titles, "The Memoirs of Alcheringia," "The Gain Expedient," and "The Master of Norriya," written by Wayland "Buster" Drew, of Bracebridge, Ontario. Wayland also wrote the book "Willow," based on the George Lucas film of the same name)
      All of Wayland Drew's books are on the first shelf of my personal library. I worked with Wayland in 1978 to launch the Bracebridge Historical Society, and Woodchester Villa and Museum. He taught at Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. His most memorable book, in reprint, was entitled "Superior; The Haunted Shore," with photographs by Bruce Litteljohn.
     More about old books and collecting them, coming in future blogs. Thanks for joining me today. It's always a pleasure.