CHARACTERS ARE MY FAVORITE PEOPLE

Blog number   173                                                              22 May 2008

I'm reading this nonfiction book about a New England husband and wife team of book collectors.  It's called, Used and Rare by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone.  Fascinating book.  I have discovered, for instance that the book itself is sometimes an art object - not the writing, but the actual physical book.  Like seascapes painted on the top of the pages so that you could only see it by fanning the pages out like a deck of cards.  Also, the actual physical book itself sometimes has a fascinating story attached to it - how it came to be and why, etc.  Like "A Christmas Carol" written in order for Dickens not to go to debtor's prison.

And not only that, but the sellers of used and rare seem to inordinately be characters.  For instance;

Anyway, Marty (Lawrence's wife Nancy calls her husband "Martin," thus, "Marty.") went in and tried to look at his stock.  But every time Marty wanted to see something, the old man jumped in front of him and yelled, "Don't touch my books!"  Then, when Marty wanted to see something, it was always on the top shelf and the old man would have to laboriously roll his ladder over and hike up to the top.  He'd get up there, open the cover to the book Marty wanted to see and then say something like, "This is a great book.  I think I'll mark it up!"  And then, right in front of Marty's eyes, he would reach into his pocket, pull out an eraser, erase the old price and write in a new, higher one.

And then, if Marty decided he was desperate enough and would buy the book anyway and said, "Okay, I'll take it," the man would yell, "It's not for sale!" and put it back on the shelf.

Later on they got to talking about Shakespeare, and the old man jumped up on the table and started quoting passages.  When he was done, he leaned over, bug-eyed, and yelled, "It's  all in the poems!"

Sweet!