In almost any town I visit I look at the yellow pages for used bookstores.
There is a certain feel and look of an old used book that invite reading.
Some readers underline and highlight, write comments on the margins. Others keep the pages pristine.
Mortimer Adler (How to Read a Book) encourages readers to leave their marks.
What do the marks tell about the reader? Do they convey a message like the earliest discovered paintings in the cave?
3 comments:
Edgar, many thanks for your comment today. I enjoyed this post, I also feel the same way about used books. I looks for marks and if I am lucky I will find a note card or newspaper clipping. I came across 84 Charring Cross Road when I was living in New Zealand a few years ago. In it was a newspaper clipping of a book review for the same book. You can imagine how delighted I was. I have since bought many copies of the book for friends. I started The Brown Paper Book Club for the very same reason, to share in books that are well loved and well read. All the better if they are marked, I take great care to do the same in mine. I make notes, underline passages and scribble a few notes to myself. When it is time to pass on the book, I hope the reader enjoys it as much as I did.
Glad to see someone else feels the same way.
Best wishes...
Jeanne
Jeanne,
A few books I cherished that I found while browsing in used bookstores:
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - when Leaves of Grass was really one long poem; Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill;Surprised by Joy by C.S.Lewis;Intellectual Life by A.D. Sertillanges; How To Read a Book by Mortimer Adler.
It's fun.
Edgar: First of all - you use the Yellow Pages? That is so cool. Most people nowadays just throw those phone books away. I do love both used clothing and bookstores and the best one is Hay-on Wye in England and has cobbled streets filled with books. I used to mark up books when I was a kid and my Grandpa used to get really cross at me...
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