Book Buyback

At the beginning of the semester I had a short conversation with a student about textbooks. My college has a two-semester requirement for its freshman writing courses and uses the same book for both. Unfortunately this means that a lot of foolish freshmen sell their books back to the bookstore after the first semester only to rebuy it again in the spring at full-price.
I had run into this former student in the hall and had mentioned this phenomenon.
"I guess I'm lucky that I didn't sell my book back" she said.
"Well, if you think about it" I replied "even in a composition textbook there are a lot of essays that are worth re-reading"
She thought about this for a moment and replied, "I guess you're right. There are some good essays in there."
I then proceeded to share my philosophy on textbooks: "I'll admit that I've sold most of my general ed. textbooks back myself, but I've never gotten rid of an English or history textbook or at least one that contained any kind of literature. That stuff is timeless."
"You're right. I think I'll hold on to mine too. Thanks Mr. Eastin."
It was a rewarding exchange but it highlighted something funny that is apparently not nearly as common sense as I would hope. I understand that most college students are poor and an extra wad of cash for end-of-semester parties is nice. But the thing is, that small and usually pathetic amount of cash (pathetic, often because of the piddling prices that most bookstores offer) is entirely visceral. It may be because I am a Literature-person by nature but I cannot conceive why anyone would want to dispose of a Norton Anthology so carelessly. Is twenty bucks really worth losing some of the most significant ideas of all time? These anthologies attempt to capture what it is to be either British, American, or even a citizen of the World as understood through literature. Isn't there something empowering about simply having this book on your shelves, even if that same shelf is populated with soccer trophies, Twilight paperbacks, or Economics textbooks?
I can only hope that this readiness to dispose of this wealth of knowledge is a matter of foolish youth and that these same kids will one day realize what they have lost and possibly reacquire it through Kindle or one of Barnes and Noble's budget editions...but I doubt it.

Library Sightings

So I was thurling in the borogroves of the Cal State Long Beach library a few days ago and happened upon a volume that inspired the following blog-post. The volume below caught my eye momentarily as I was walking to another section of the library. The title took a few steps to register in my brain but it was enough to make me turn back and take a second look. It was entitled How to Collect Books by J. Herbert Slater. I found this title and the existence of the volume ironic for two reasons: only a proficient collector of books would happen to have this book on his shelf, and the book itself (published in 1905) has undoubtedly appreciated, at least slightly, by the very rules to be found in its leaves.

 As I thumbed through its pages, stopping here and there on pages displaying especially valuable binding types and illustrations of the tooled leather covers of a bygone era in bookmaking I began to recall some of my own inspirations for collecting books. I am by no means particularly discerning, at least when it comes to the market value of a particular book and the book pictured above seemed to focus mostly on shelf aesthetics.

In retrospect I am particularly aware of how my concept of a private library was formed. I have a bevy of images implanted in my brain, mostly from films like Beauty and the Beast (you all know which scene I'm talking about), The Pagemaster and The Addams Family (both films have undoubtedly implanted in my mind the small sliver of hope that the right book pulled from the shelf at the right time will quite literally come to life in my hands). Though fiction the libraries depicted there had a profound effect and having actually seen the private library of Thomas Edison (which I have had a hell of a time finding an actual picture of) made me think that such a dream was possible.

But there is one major issue inherent in such vast private collections: the simple fact that the more books one owns, the less likely it is that one has read them. I saw a perfect example of this my first year in college when a hallmate of mind took it upon himself to begin collecting books. Now the volumes with which his shelves were laden were typically those beautifully done printings by Barnes and Noble, often faux leather with gilded pages. I won't lie that I envied his collection as its contents were aesthetically pleasing and artistically valid. The one problem was that this particular student was a business major (I'm sorry to any of such ilk out there but these folk were notorious at my university for being meatheads; only one step above a Comm major *titter*). As a result, I would be surprised if the gilding of his copy of Plato has been cracked to this day unless by a curious houseguest.

This illustration in a way assuages my envy since, though my shelves are scattered with paperbacks, the contents are equally valid and more importantly, I can claim that I have read or intend to read (or at the very least understand) every single volume that I own. And that is a very comforting thought. In a world of Amazon and bargain used books I have learned that the content takes precedence over an unnecessarily high priced printing. Yet I still care enough for aesthetics to organize my collection in Dewey (sorry librarians, I'll need a few thousand more books for Library of Congress to be worth it) and to never, and I mean NEVER, break the spines on my paperbacks.
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(bibliography info thanks to CSULB's Library Catalogue)
Slater, J. Herbert. How to Collect Books. London, G. Bell & sons, 1905.