A Road Less Travelled

For many years now I have been a self professed book nut. I love reading books, I love holding books. I will gladly browse when I have no money to buy and I get excited when I find a really good book even when I already own it. Some of the most restful and pleasant times I’ve had have been surrounded by books.

It was only when I moved to Peoria that I became acquainted with used books stores. Either there aren’t any in Erie or I just never knew about them. I bought all of my books (gasp) new. Shopping at a chain bookstore is very different than browsing at a used books store. When I find a book I wanted at a chain store it’s just what I expected. It was supposed to be there. But when I find that same book in a used book store it’s like I’ve just discovered the Mayan temples deep in the jungle. I would dance around in joy, but then I would probably drop all the books in my arms so I restrain myself. I’m dancing on the inside.

When I first moved here Seth and I stopped in at a used book store called the Book Nook on University. Sadly it was mostly full of bad romance novels and even those weren’t very well organized. I gave the Book Nook up for lost. I was very excited then to hear that someone had bought the Book Nook and was trying to make it someplace worthy of good books. Then I met the new owner, Michael Langley, and decided that he struck me as someone who would run a bookstore well so I decided to give the Book Nook another try.

The Book Nook is obviously run by someone who loves books. I spend two thirds of my time in the store looking through the books and the other third talking about books with Michael. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a well-known regular at a bookstore. I got a jump start on being well known because we met Michael in a social setting before I went to his store, but even then he remembered the sort of books I read and had a suggestion for me the last time I was in.

The books in the store go from practically new to gently used and he has a good selection in a variety of genres. I have found several books in the store that I haven’t found at any other store. I even found a P. G. Wodehouse. I never see Wodehouse anywhere! The prices are a little more than some used bookstores I’ve been in, but he gives a comparable amount in store credit if you trade in books.

The store has been in a bit of disorder for a while because Michael recently expanded into the store next door. He just about doubled his space and still has more books than could easily fit in the store. If you ask, and even if you don’t, he’ll tell you that the best books are most likely in the stacks around the store. I’m not sure I’d say the best books, but I have found some good books in the stacks.

There are three used bookstores in the Peoria area that I have visited. The Book Nook is my favorite. If you like books and have an hour or more to spend in a store you should definitely check it out. And hey, maybe I’ll see you there.

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There is a thrill that comes with finding a good book. That’s why I like used books stores. You’re never sure what you might find. It’s like a game, like you’re the predator prowling among bookshelves.

There you are, moving among the shelves like a panther stalking a moose. The lights hum above you, the smell of book is in your nose. Somewhere out there is a book you would enjoy, a book you would love, a book so delightful you probably won’t sleep until you have finished savoring every page.

It’s waiting, hiding, sometimes cleverly sitting in plain sight. You whip around a corner and bounce! Nope, that’s not it. That’s just a Judy Blume. So, you move on. You’re getting close now. The book just ahead is witty, is intense, is a book you would love more than life itself. You can feel it, you can smell it, you can almost taste it.

There! You leap from your place of concealment and pounce on the book. Victory! You hold the book above your head and roar your triumph at fluorescent lights. Take that, you shout at the shelves of romance novels, I found good here, no thanks to you! And then, the magical moment when you lower your hands and take a long, lingering look at your catch, your delight, your bounty. It’s beautiful, it’s spectacular, it’s… Oh wait, never mind. You already have this one.

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Yesterday I finished reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together which is a discussion on Christian community. It is a fine book even though some of his thoughts are obviously addressed to people without small children. He asks basic important questions such as why should we be in community, what holds a community together, and what should it be about. He states directly that everyone in your community, or family fellowship as his translators call it, will be a sinner and that the worst one of the lot will be you. The finest chapter though, in my opinion, was the chapter on ministry.

Pastor Bonhoeffer says at the very beginning of the chapter that he is not writing about full-time, paid ministry, but that he is writing about Christians serving and living with each in love and harmony. I appreciated how simple some of his thoughts were. He said first and foremost “Don’t say everything that comes into your head. Most of it will probably be either hurtful or unhelpful.”

Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words. It is certain that the spirit of self-justification can be overcome only by the Spirit of grace; nevertheless, isolated thoughts of judgment can be curbed and smothered by never allowing them the right to be uttered, except as confession of sin.

The next thought was “When someone comes to you who needs to talk just listen to him. Don’t talk; just listen.” I found this to be a simple, yet profound thought. Sometimes we just need to shut up in love.

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gave us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.

The companion thought is sometimes we need to speak. I was glad Pastor Bonhoeffer said both things because it is very easy to go one way or the other, but it is hard to be wise and discerning to know whether to speak or to shut up.

Where Christians live together the time must inevitably come when in some crisis one person will have to declare God’s Word and will to another. It is unchristian consciously to deprive one another of the one decisive service we can render to him. If we cannot bring ourselves to utter it, we shall have to ask ourselves whether we are not still seeing our brother garbed in his human dignity which we are afraid to touch, and thus forgetting the most important thing, that he, too, no matter how old or highly placed or distinguished he may be, is still a man like us, a sinner in crying need of God’s grace.

And then he says, in no uncertain terms, that we need to do stuff for each other. There is a time to listen, a time to speak and a time to get up and do something for someone else. Take your hands and use them to bless someone and to show love to him. It doesn’t matter how big or, usually, how small the action is. Pick up your hands and do it for your brother and for God.

Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time that such petty outward acts of helpfulness entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly.

We must allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions…. Only where hands are not too good for deeds of love and mercy in everyday helpfulness can the mouth joyfully and convincingly proclaim the message of God’s love and mercy.

I’d like to say I was struck by one of these thoughts more than the other, but I think I needed to be reminded of them all. This community thing is hard sometimes, but I do think it is worth it. I just need someone to remind me every few minutes.

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Ever now and then I look at my books and notice all the books I own that I have not read. Recently I had this strange thought- maybe I could start reading those books. And since I collect Ray Bradbury I thought I should start there.

I love reading Bradbury. When I grow up and become a writer I want to write like a combination of him, P. G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. Ray Bradbury can make words dance better than any other author I’ve read. There are places in his books when nothing is really happening and I am enthralled by his description of it. His words read like poetry in prose. He makes the words dance a ballet and I just love sitting in the front row and watching. Douglas Adams comes close to Ray Bradbury’s skill with words, but since he makes words dance a polka the affect is rather different.

The book I’m reading right now is Something Wicked This Way Comes. The two main characters in the book are two thirteen-year-old boys, Will and Jim, who always run together. The first secondary character is one of the boys’s father. He married late to a woman younger than himself, had his only son when he as forty and now he feels old and tired all the time. Before he got married he was a wanderer, going from town to town collecting knowledge, looking for wisdom. He stopped in this town because he met the woman who is now his wife and he didn’t want to leave her. But now he is very distant from his family and he spends his nights at the library where he works as janitor, still looking for wisdom and trying to be good when he knows he is a sinner. He almost never talks to his son and while they love each other they don’t really know each other.

Then evil comes to town and Will and Jim get caught up in its plans. Will’s father is the last person we expect them to look to for help, but he somehow knows they need him and rises to the occasion. He reveals himself to be a perceptive, eloquent man who carries a great portion of wisdom that he has never shown anybody other than the books he surrounds himself with. There is one part in particular that I thought was especially beautiful. The boys are hidden under a grill in the floor and Mr. Halloway, Will’s father, is standing right over them talking to the evil man who is looking for the boys. Mr. Halloway manages to lie to the man who leaves in a fury. Will looks up and realizes that his father is very tall. He’d never noticed before then.

Last night the kids and I watched Small Soldiers, By no means an excellent movie, but the toys walk and talk and fight and that’s always fun. One set of parents are presented as being a little over-bearing (the other set are complete buffoons), but towards the end in the big battle the father fights for his family right in front of his son. I never noticed this part when I was younger, but this time through I noticed and appreciated the look on the son’s face when he realizes his father is strong.

These moments resonate with me. I know what it feels like to be protected by a father who loves me. There was this one time Elizabeth and I were building a snow fort in the parking lot behind our house. Four or five neighborhood boys came along and took our fort from us so we moved across the parking lot and started another fort. When we were about half-way done they declared war on us and stood over us pelting us with snowballs. Elizabeth had just gotten stitches out of her head (another fun story) and got really scared that her cut had broken open. Thankfully her fear looked like anger so she stood up and told the boys that she might be bleeding now and it was all their fault. And then we went home.

My father was mad. He walked back with us and listened to the boys lie to his his face. He told them off anyway. To their credit, after they lied one of the boys said he was sorry, he hadn’t known she had just gotten stitches out of her head. It didn’t count for much because he had just stood there and listed to his friends lie to my father, but it counts for a little. Anyway, I felt so good standing there next to my daddy watching him defend me from the neighborhood bullies. As I look back on it I remember him being very tall.

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 One would think that one very large bookshelf would be enough for any young single female. That is, of course, unless that female happens to be of the Mutton line. Take, for example, my bookshelf. (No, don’t actually take it–I need it rather badly.) Not only are all six four-foot shelves jammed with books, but the top of the bookshelf has books most of the way across (saving room only for my stack of hats), and there are piles of of books stacked in the space between the top of the books and next shelf up. I purposely arrange my books (within genre and author guidelines, of course) so as to have the maximum number of paperbacks in row, to leave a nice flat surface for stacking.

Now, having already been informed that this is the bookshelf of one in the Mutton line, one would of course not assume that this comprises the extent of my book collection. No, after the maximum number of books have been crammed into my bookshelf the overflow takes up my closet shelf, a shelf above my desk and half of the desktop itself, and the back of my dresser. This is not counting the small (three shelf) bookshelf jammed full of children’s books which resides under my loft bed, the row of picture books taking up two-thirds of the wall along the floor under my bed, the crate full of craft books in my closet, or the Janette Oke books packed away in my closet. (Don’t mock me–I know they’re not great literature, but they were fun back when I read them.)

Having filled every available nook and cranny with books, there’s just one problem: I haven’t stopped buying books. With twenty-five and fifty cent books in the library book sale room, I’m not even spending all of my book budget, but I’m still about to start drowning in books.  I’ve taken half of my cookbook collection and stacked it on the floor to make something resembling an end table. Yesterday I made another next it with my Star Trek books. This cleared a little stacking space on the shelf, but the shelves themselves are still full.

If I go missing for a few weeks, someone should check under the sea of books in my room. I’ll probably be buried somewhere in there desperately trying to reach my laptop so I can order just one more book. Sigh. I supposed something really does have to give. I just hope it’s not the floor of my room collapsing under the weight of all my books…

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 I’m about half-way through reading World War Z right now. I might get around to a full review of the book when I finish it, but it case I don’t I’ll just say right now that I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying it in a, “Yeah, people are idiots just like that. I completely accept the harsh way you’re portraying this.” kind of way, but it’s still good.

 Reading this book so far has made me realize something.  Flat out enemies I can physically fight don’t disturb me. The attack of undead people doesn’t bother me. It might be frightening, but it brings out my stubborn streak and my viscious streak. What really disturbs me is politics and messy desicions.

  The worst parts of this book aren’t about losing the fight against the zombies. They’re about suburbanites who don’t want to have to pay any attention to the problem. They’re about FDA approved drugs that are completly useless but profitable and well marketed. They’re about the infighting between refugees and soldiers oversupplied with useless tools and governments trying to decide who to save when they can’t save everyone. They’re the really believable parts.

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I just finished reading Ender’s Shadow (a parallel novel to Ender’s Game which I wrote about last February). While I enjoyed Ender’s Shadow at least as much as the first book I am not in the mood to analyze and explain why. Instead I will merely quote for you a couple of the parts that most resonated with me.

“He (Ender) walked down the corridor lined with his soldiers, who looked at him with love, with awe, with trust. Except Bean, who looked at him with anguish. Ender Wiggin was not larger than life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far.”

“I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I’ll do it, if I can. You don’t have to do this alone.

Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn’t true….Ender was was what Bean only wished to be–the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you.

I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.

And then…he almost laughed as he thought, I don’t want to have to through what I’ve gone through to get here, either.”

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Lately I’ve been reading through my Heralds of Valdemar books. Valdemar is a little world created by an author named Mercedes Lackey and the Heralds are these folks with special Gifts who go around the countryside dispensing justice and protecting the people and stuffs like that. But what makes the Heralds really cool is the Companions. A person becomes a Herald by being Chosen by a Companion. The Companions are these beings who are like angels or some such in horse shape. A Companion will go find someone who is supposed to be a Herald and when the Companion chooses a Herald a link is formed between them. Most times they will be able to talk to each other in their minds. What one knows can easily be projected into the other’s mind. There is a link between their minds or maybe it would be better to say there is a link between their souls.

Mercedes Lackey is not the first who came up with this link. Years ago an author named Anne MacCaffery created the Dragonriders of Pern. The Dragonriders have a similar link with their dragons as the Heralds have with their Companions. If you hurt the rider his dragon will feel pain and the same the other way around. When a rider dies his dragon will suicide and when a dragon dies it leaves his rider broken.

  Whenever I start reader any of these books I have a hard time putting them down. The plots are interesting and I enjoy watching the characters, but a goodly part of what is so attractive about these books to me is the bond between Herald and Companion, between Dragonman and dragon. There is something about a creature other than you who can get inside your head and who knows you and yet still loves you. And there is something about this other creature having the ability to travel great distances fairly easily, but that is a minor point. There is something about someone other than me being knowing what I am thinking without me having to fumble for words.

It is a common daydream of mine that one day I wake up with someone else riding around in my head. This other person would see my day and know what I was thinking and maybe this person would come to understand me a little bit better. Of course I wouldn’t know the other person was there. If I knew it would ruin everything. I’ve had this daydream for a long while now and the person who hitches a ride in my head has changed over the years. But it’s always someone I felt I could never express myself to or someone I had fumbled my words when I was last talking to him about something important. And if this other person could just walk around a day watching everything I was thinking about then he would understand. Or more often, then she would understand and maybe we could actually be friends. But it never happened.

So I’m reading this book and there’s this kid with a whole heap of trouble and woe and then he gets Chosen. His troubles don’t just vanish and his woes are still there. But now there is someone else in his head. There is his Companion who will go through all these woes with him and she will never leave him and she understands. That is a big deal. She gets it. He doesn’t have to finish his sentences and he doesn’t have to explain himself very much. She gets it. Oh, wouldn’t that be great? To have someone other than you understand. Maybe this would be the only person who understands including you, but it would be someone. And you wouldn’t ever be lonely. There would always be someone to talk to and there would always be someone there even if you were all alone in a room. Wouldn’t that be great?

Sometimes it gets lonely in my head. And sometimes I can be in a room full of people who are being pleasant to me and I can still feel lonely. In a different book and world entirely a character commented that humans really were very lonely people. He wasn’t human so this was an outsiders opinion. He said that we humans have to rely on words to express our thoughts to each other and how very lonely that was. I think I agree with him. I just spent I don’t know how long sitting at this computer in this uncomfortable chair and I’m not sure I have actually expressed what I wanted to say. And there’s lots more I want to say, but I know the words aren’t where I want them to be. So for now I’ll stop. When my words come back maybe I’ll finish this thought. Or maybe this thought will have to go to the room where all my thoughts I haven’t been able to finish or communicate to others are. It’s getting kinda crowded in there.  

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One of my all time favorite authors is aman by the name of Lloyd Alexander. He wrote a series that is up on the list of books I grew up with and regard as staples in any literary diet. I read everything I could find that Lloyd Alexander had written except for a book called The Kestrel. I have memories of various people discussing Lloyd Alexander and remarking on how fun his books were. Except for The Kestrel, they would say. Yes, the others would agree, except for The Kestrel. So the last time I was at the library and I saw The Kestrel I got it out. I wanted to see what everyone meant. And you know, they were right.

Often times there is conflict in Lloyd Alexander’s book. Sometimes even war. But it is portrayed almost as a child’s version of war. His books are written for young people and his wars are a young perspective of war. There is always this sense that this is a bad thing, but he never goes into much detail and the questions he asks are not about the war itself. Except for The Kestrel. It is a book that asks brutally hard questions about warfare and honor and I am ashamed to say I don’t have the answers. There were times in the book I thought “That’s wrong”, but then I would hear a character explain it and it almost made sense. I would think “They shouldn’t do that”, but then I would wonder what they should have done instead. I started asking the same questions Lloyd Alexander asked, but I don’t have any answers. I don’t think he does either. So for now I’m pondering, but I wonder if there are any clear answers. The most I have right now is “War is an ugly thing and it always will be.”

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  Last night I had a hankering to go out and do something.  So I called Raquel and said, “I feel like going out and doing something. You wanna come?” At ths point I had an idea of something to do. It struck me as being the height of lame while also fun. I thought, we could go to the library. Yes, yes, I know. Such wildness in today’s youth. But see the libraries around here, while otherwise falling far short of my good opinion of libraries, do have such a thing as a book sale room. An entire room devoted to selling the books they don’t want anymore. And, what’s more, they stock this room on Tuesdays. Yesterday was Tuesday. So Raquel and I mosied on down to the library to peruse.

I bought my very first Mrs. Pollifax book. I’ve never read any Mrs. Pollifax, but I know enough to find the concept amusing. I bought a copy of Crime and Punishment and my very own copy of the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. I picked up two Misty books for Arianna. And then Raquel and I looked  through the kid’s book. I will admit I found myself in a rather sentimental mood. Lucky for me Raquel’s mood was even more so. And so we’re looking at kid’s books and Raquel would read through one and say, “Oh, that’s sad!” So of course I had to read through it and it was sad. Then she found a book and she said, “Oh, the blue kangaroo.” And I read through it and I too was happy for the blue kangaroo. I bought a book about a wise man making a fool out of his king with a chessboard. I bought a book about button soup. I bought a book about a little girl sailing on her own ship called the Maggi B. And I got a Martha book. Martha books are awesome. See there’s this dog named Martha and when she eats vegetable soup the letters go into her brain instead of her head. So she can talk, see? Martha books are fun.

So that’s a record of our wild book buying spree. I felt like such a geek to think this was cool, but I’m sitting here writing about it and I still think it was cool. I guess I should just enjoying my geekiness.

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