If you are at all like me, books never cease to allure you, delight you, amaze and even intoxicate you.
I would rather spend time in a bookstore than a museum, and I dearly love museums, which may explain why I especially adore used-books bookstores – and public libraries, too – because they are like bibliophilic museums, only better, because you are allowed to handle the old artifacts on display.
Yes, some of the best bookstores are second-hand museums, and the best of these remind me of Ventura’s long defunct All Pro Sporting Goods that was owned by legendary Bob Tuttle. It was a hole-in-the wall, barely bigger than a walk-in closet, yet like Mary Poppins’ magical carpetbag anything you were looking for could be found within.
Indeed, in the 1970s you might go into All-Pro to buy basketball sneakers and leave also with a new-but-blemished baseball mitt from the bargain bin in the same manner one might today be interested in a newly released novel at Ventura’s beloved Bank of Books and in addition wind up buying a second-hand copy of a classic.
There is something special about old books and the perfume they release – a trace of mustiness and earthiness, with a hint of vanilla mixed in – when you turn the pages, foxed and yellowing and slightly brittle from age. Used-books bookstores smell sweeter than a nursery greenhouse.
However, I also find delight in new books and independent bookstores where the staff can ask you a few questions and then give you a perfect recommendation that, to borrow from Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”, really knocks you out. Furthermore, indie shops often have reading nooks and dog-eared couches that invite you to pleasantly linger a while. Timbre Books in Ventura and The Bookworm in Camarillo are two of my favorite cozy bookshops.
The breathtaking library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
Too, I love libraries. The most beautiful library I have ever been inside is at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, a cathedral of the printed page where the priceless Book of Kells, dating back to 800 A.D., resides. When Jorge Luis Borges said, “I have always imagined Paradise will be a kind of library,” I think he had this Trinity College library in mind.
I think any library is a slice of Paradise. This includes home libraries, whether they contain thousands of volumes or merely a dozen cherished favorites. Growing up, our home library was actually a small bedroom, but very tall, with two opposing walls featuring white-painted pine bookshelves that rose like mountains from the floor to the 12-foot ceiling.
These Twin Peaks were as beautiful as any mosaic in an art museum. Instead of ceramic tiles, or stones, or sea glass, the medium was book spines. Thin spines and thick tomes; tall spines, short ones; spines in rainbow hues and earth tones. Most of the spines were shelved vertically, but some were stacked horizontally. There were leather spines as pristine as shoes polished for church, others dulled by age and creased from use. There were clothbound spines, paperback spines, spines covered by glossy dust jackets. There were new-looking old spines and old-looking new ones. Some spines had fancy gilt lettering while others had titles and authors printed in inks of every color, in myriad fonts.
Twin Peaks had too many books to read in ten lifetimes, but that was fine. As the poet Robert Browning said, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or else what’s a heaven for?”
Next week: Two of my friends and the most cherished books in their home slices of heaven.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com