Books

This post is not about our U.S. trip, but I started writing it after visiting the Midway Book Store. I never went there when we lived in Saint Paul. I have no idea why. I guess for the same reason I never went to the Korean barbecue restaurant or the Mill City Museum. I just didn't. And it's a shame, because Midway is a paradise of used, well-loved books. As I stood there, holding one book in each hand and trying to feel which was lighter (I was only allowing myself to get only one),  I started thinking about my history with books.

It used to be simple - pick one that looks interesting and take it home. In our house we had several shelves of books, which all had to be sold when we moved to Germany. It seemed cruel to leave them like that, but there was only so much room on the container ship. We gave a few away and put the rest out at our moving sale. At least I got to meet the people who would take them home. What was left ended up on the counter at a used book store. The pile of them - textbooks, novels, non-fiction - sold for next to nothing.  I felt like I'd thrown them out in the gutter.

Now, buying books is a complex emotional experience. It's not just deciding if I can take the weight and shape of one in my suitcase, it's the knowing that I will have to part with it someday.

 I love libraries and the pleasure of checking out more books than I'll have time to read. At some set date they are due back and our relationship has a natural end point. There is no long-term commitment there, no expectation of underlining or shelf space or messages inside the front cover. 

In Hannover, I can get some books in English at the public library, and Spanish books too. By now. I think I have read most of the titles on the Spanish shelf. Books here are passed around between our expat friends. Most often we get them from those who have been here long enough to build a shelf of books they bought abroad, or ordered online, or borrowed from someone and never returned.

Now I have this e-reader thing. It was a re-gift from my dad who had one already. When I was a kid, I'd come along on a Saturday when he would buy a stack of spy novels and westerns from the used paperback shop. Then he'd sell them all back a few weeks later. Now he can do the same thing electronically.

The e-reader is incredibly practical and it feels like cheating. I don't see the cover staring at me from the night stand when I wake up. There is no smell of old pages, no bookmark that someone forgot to take out, no need to write your name on it. In school, I always chose the inside cover or the title page top right. Brian wrote MCCARTHY in big black Sharpie letters along the edge of all the pages, so that the letters split open as he read. No new owner could ever deny who'd had that book first.


Used books and library books have a mysterious past. Someone took them on vacation. Someone stayed up late to finish reading them. Someone smeared chocolate on page 32. I wonder what shelves my books are sitting on these days, and who their readers are.

I ended up buying two books at Midway that day. I know, I know, I broke my own rule. But the second one was really light.