A Brief Encounter

A few brittle moments on Saturday…

In weekly trips to the public library there is something of a pattern to my visits, and a big part of that is the time spent looking through the large cart of donated books just inside the door. The books are not meant to be snatched up and freely taken without a word to library personnel, and there is a procedure to follow—quite simple—in the case of a desired book from the cart. I’ve done it at least a dozen times.

The donated book program is managed by a group of volunteers called Friends of the Library. The aim is not to make a great deal of money for the library, but to add marginal financial support to library programs and to offer a service to readers and book lovers. Most books, unless newly released hardbacks by well known authors, are priced between one and two dollars. I once paid $3.30 for a new first edition hardback release by Barbara Kingsolver, the most I’ve ever paid. This time it was a 2005 Penguin Classics paperback of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, suggested bookstore price $16.00.

Familiar with the procedure, I took the Hans Christian Andersen book over to the reference librarian’s desk and explained that I was interested in purchasing a book picked from the donations cart. I wasn’t sure how it would work this time, whether they would allow me to buy it immediately, or after processing in two or three days time. Either way was fine. This time the librarian on duty said the book would be processed, priced, then placed on the shelves in the small book sale room. Mmm…news to me.

“May I write my name and telephone number on a slip of paper to put on the book indicating my interest?”

“Yes, that would be all right, though I’m not sure they will call you.”

“Really? They’ve done so on one or two other occasions.”

A shrug.

“I’m going to ask on the note that in processing the book they please not mark the price on the front cover with a grease pencil, but write it on this paper instead.”

“No, that’s the system. That’s how they price mark the books.”

“Well, marking the cover devalues the book and writing the price on this slip of paper is not too difficult.”

“Yes, well that’s the system.”

Having received no phone call by Tuesday, I stopped at the reference librarian’s desk to inquire. A different librarian was on duty this time and after hearing my request, promptly located the book on a nearby shelf. A price of $3.50 was written on the slip of paper with my name and number. The librarian took one look and said, “That’s too much. It should be $1.10.” And that’s what I paid for a clean copy in fine condition.

Each of the thirty fairy tales in this collection is preceded by an illustration. The example above is from the story, “The Tinderbox,” one of the writer’s early tales, first published in 1835. Unknown to many is Andersen’s artistic abilities, and that in his early years he considered focusing entirely on art. One of his talents was making paper cut-out figures of characters from the folk tales of his childhood. Thirty of those paper cut-outs are reproduced in this edition of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales.

A Hard Bargain

The Public Library in my community is the kind of library I used to dream about during the years I lived in Japan. Letters from friends in the US occasionally spoke of library services available to local residents, and I absorbed the information with great envy. The system is very different in Japan, and unless you visit specialized libraries in inconvenient locations, the number of books in English is always small. As far as English goes, well-known classics are not rare, but contemporary writers remain poorly represented in most Tokyo libraries.

Now I find myself in library heaven, awash in a dozen or so member services, and overloaded with books, magazines, newspapers, music on CD and movies on DVD. There are at least two dozen computers provided for patrons, and for those bringing a laptop the WI-FI is free. Several services are offered via home computer, things like renewals, reservations and requests to other branches—all of which thrill me with their quick efficiency. It’s probably quite ordinary to people long familiar with the local library system in the US, but to me it seems like free candy.

Along with the huge collection of DVDs—movies, including foreign films, documentaries and television series—the service I enjoy most is the sale of donated books. There is a large box-like receptacle at the entrance for those who want to get rid of old (or new) books from home. Each time I go to the library, probably four or five times each week, my first stop is at the big cache of donated books. They are not free for the taking, but must first be processed by library personnel before being added to the shelves of the far from small library “bookstore.”

I have found a method to get the books I want after a wait of several days. I’m not sure if other patrons use the same method, but it has yet to fail me. I take the book I am interested in to the desk and ask that they hold it for me until the processing is complete. The only worry is the possibility that the person processing the book might scribble a price on the front cover with pen, pencil, or in one case grease pencil.

In this manner, I have gotten a first edition hardback of Walter Mosley’s 1996 A Little Yellow Dog, another first of his 2002 book, Bad Boy Brawly Brown, and a first edition of the newest Barbara Kingsolver novel, The Lacuna. At the point I found this last book in the library box, I was very near buying a copy at Barnes & Noble for $26.99. Except for the seemingly indelible grease pencil price scrawled across the front cover, the book is as new and unmarked as anything in Barnes & Noble. I paid $3.30. The two Mosley books were a dollar each.

But these three books pale in comparison to my ‘Find of the Year.’ Last week I was casually looking through a stack of donated books when I found beneath an old Danielle Steele book something that made my heart stop. First thing I did was look over my shoulder to see if another book lover was hovering nearby. The book in my hand was a hardback 1960 J.B. Lippencott first edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird—in fine condition. To my slight disappointment, I saw printed on the inside flap the words, ‘Book Club Edition.’ Unfortunately, those three little words take a few thousand off the book’s value. However, it’s still worth considerably more than the outrageous price the library charged me for the book three days after reserving it. I went through the usual process and reminded them I would return in a few days.

Upon my return, and following a few minutes of heavy bargaining, I realized they weren’t going to come down on the price. When I finally said okay, that I would pay what they were asking, the little old lady librarian snatched up a pen, millimeters away from scratching the price on the book’s front cover, when I dropped to my knees, hands raised in prayer shouting, “PLEASE DON’T!!” She smirked, said okay and wrote the price on a scrap of paper. I took the first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird to the desk and paid the full price—30¢.