One reason I like used book stores is because you can find more than books there. I once found a dollar bill in a book, which paid for half its pages and one of its covers. Another time, I found a receipt from Rhodes Department Store in Seattle, written out to Mrs. Myra Helm, who was living at the Olympic Hotel. Mrs. Helm paid $2.56 for three books, one of which cost 39 cents.
When I turned over the receipt, I came upon the following printed statement: “Rhodes Department Store is owned and financed entirely in Seattle. Rhodes money is deposited exclusively in Seattle banks. Rhodes profits are reinvested in Seattle. Shop at Rhodes[,] where every dollar buys a dollar[’]s worth and then continues to work for you by building Seattle into a bigger and better city.”
In other words, don’t bother spending your money at Sears—or in Tacoma, where Albert, Henry, and Charles Rhodes first established a department store in 1903, before Albert jumped ship and moved to Seattle in 1907 to establish his own store. (Do we sense some passive-aggressive sibling rivalry in this document?)
The book in which Mrs. Helm left her folded receipt is called Northwest Passage, by Kenneth Roberts. Published in 1937, it appears to be a fictionalized account of Robert Rogers and his Rangers, who were real-life frontiersmen during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. I say “appears” because I never actually got around to reading it, and I bought it more than 20 years ago at a cluttered bookshop in Seattle’s Belltown district.
Like Northwest Passage, many books remain unread on my shelves. Here’s a smattering of well-intentioned tome purchases that now collect dust: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace (bought before the author committed suicide); Underworld, by Don Delillo; Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon; Son of the Circus, by John Irving; and, of course, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, by Geza Vermes. My literary ambitions have clearly been outstripped by my laziness.
There are many more. Many, many more. Books on philosophy. Books on history. There’s even a second book titled Northwest Passage, this one by William Dietrich. It’s about the Columbia River, or so the blurb on the back says. And, yes, there’s also a book called Northwest Passages (plural), by Bruce Barcott, which I’ve managed to dip into once or twice because it’s an anthology—and the passages are short.
Just to be clear, I’ve managed to not read plenty of shorter books, as well—poetry, short-story collections, literary journals—none of which would require much of my disposable time. I’ve also managed to not read two books about books: The Book on the Book Shelf, by Henry Petroski, and A Passion for Books: A Book Lover’s Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore, and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring For, and Appreciating Books, edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan, with a foreward by Ray Bradbury. The ghosts of dead intentions, these volumes on bibliophilia have been haunting me from the bookshelf for far too long, daring me to truly appreciate their contents or the contents of any book on my shelf. (Side note of braggadocio: In the parlance of a certain presidential candidate, Ray Bradbury and I were once “stablemates” in the same edition of The Writer magazine. My short story “Please, Leave a Message” was cheek by jowl with his essay “How to Keep & Feed the Muse.” Well, OK, Bradbury’s piece was actually an article taken from The Writer’s archive, circa 1961 . . . but still. And did I read it? Nope.)
Have I lost the passion for reading? Are my books more about artifact than artistry? I don’t think so. But I do fall asleep more easily when I read these days. A few years back, I came up with a theory about reading and slumber. Reading approximates REM sleep. The eyes move across the page, often rapidly. You’re immersed in a dream state when you read, an alternate world. No wonder I can’t last more than a few pages.
But I’m trying not to feel guilty about it. As was pointed out in several recent articles, the Japanese even have a word for the practice of buying books but not reading them: tsundoku. It’s all about the possibility of reading, the librariness of life.
And so I suppose I will keep on accumulating books, if perhaps at a slower pace. I’ve told myself that I will not buy a book by an author if I haven’t read another book by said author that’s already on my shelf. (Tell that to the three books by Donna Tartt—or, for that matter, Barbara Kingsolver—which I’ve yet to crack open).
Truth is, I’ve always liked surrounding myself with books, even if I only pull them off the shelf for a quick smell and to feel the hefty effort that went into writing them. After all, the potential to read them remains. (My intentions are not fully dead, just sometimes on life support.)
What’s more, I do occasionally turn, serendipitously, to a passage just to discover something out of context—like a dollar bill or a receipt left for my personal archive, creating a story of its own.
Thank you, Myra Helm, wherever you are.