[image by Brian]
Goal for June: Read a book a day. Follow my reading list here.
Green reading tip: Buy your books used.
Not only will you save the environment, you’ll save money. Better yet — support a used bookstore in your community.
Yes, second hand bookstores can bring you joy, as Ben Myers of the Guardian UK points out. “Given that the average person might read one or two books a year, this leaves a lot of surplus Christmas presents or gift-voucher-bought books for the rest of us. Multiply that by 60 million citizens and, say, the past 50 years, and that leaves millions upon millions of bargain books out there gathering dust and just waiting for a loving home.”
I had a fun time at Kulturas Books and got some really good deals — Though the book I read, Diane DiPrima’s Pieces of a Song, came from a different used bookstore: Brand Books in Glendale (231 N. Brand Blvd.), which has a decent poetry selection.
My copy of Diane’s book, btw, was signed to one Bianca and also contained a biz card that asserts “Love at first sight is a beautiful thing.” Not sure whether the card represents a fortuneteller or matchmaker, but regardless, it was useful as a bookmark –
Diane’s a beat and New York School-influenced poet, who perhaps most notoriously had an affair and a child with LeRoi Jones while he was married to Hettie and before he became Amiri Baraka. “Roi” is oft mentioned in the earlier poems:
I wonder often what it is that you are doing –
How much of it is pride, or ambition
As we so easily say.
I remember the message I gave Freddie for you
That I would see you again at the end of this
(Meaning my marriage and yours)– from section 3, “Note to Roi” in “Ode to Keats”
Though now she’s been married to at least 3 other men, had 5 or so children –
Many of the poems I like are the humerous ones, like “Nightmare 2,” when after trying to get a slimy worm out of her kitchen for hours in a dream, she gets the job done for her:
Whereupon looking down again I saw a line of sleek roaches was
marching the worm away and singing Onward Christian Roaches.
Book read: Diane DiPrima, Pieces of a Song
June 20th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
The beauty of used book shops is that every single one is completely unique. I realized some time ago that new book stores have virtually the same inventory no matter the name on the front or the place on earth. But every used book store has a different set of books. I’ve been in a few hundred book stores in the course of my life and it’s the used book shops that are the best.
btw, I’m the guy who said hi at the farmer’s market today.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Well, I gotta give some props to some of the new bookstores — i.e. Dawson’s Books. Their inventory really is unique — though of course they do have to make sure the popular, current stuff’s in stock too –
But yes, I totally agree that used book shops are all one-of-a-kind :)
Thanks for stopping by the Farmers’ Market! If I’d been a lil less frazzled, I mighta figured you were the dream-in-color dude!