Practically perfect

Today feels like fall. The sky is unbroken blue and the sun brilliant. There's a buffeting wind from the southwest. The leaves still on the trees that line Ponsonby Road rattle at me as I walk by them, and those that have fallen are gathering themselves into patterns and piles that lie at rest between unseen currents.  It's invigorating and more than a bit exciting to be out on such a morning.  

At breakfast, Jeanne and I had discussed our action plans for the day. She intended to take the day off from gardening, and to bicycle in the gym instead. I definitely needed to walk. A good, long walk. It may have been that some of that charged wind found its way into our apartment and acted as a tonic to my system. I felt energized. Chock full of ions.  

As I exited our village gate a bit later, turned and headed down to and over the bridge, I decided I'd take a bus to Ponsonby Road. Each time I walk there, I find something new and interesting to admire. To enjoy. To photograph. To share.  

Today was no exception. I found a bookstore.  

"What? Hold it. Stop right there." 

I hear some shouting. 

"In the first place," one of you grumbles, "Bookstores are boring and they're a dime a dozen besides. They're in every mall in every town, and they all have the same stuff." 

"Ah," I patiently reply to the skeptics. 

"You may have a point about some of those mall bookstor.. No, no, don't tell me, let me guess. 

I can see that you're bursting to say more. You want to point out that the Latin root, mal, means 'bad' or 'evil,' right?    

Well, I've got to agree with you that it's curious how similar mall is to mal , but we can talk more about that another time."  

What I'm telling you in today's post is that I found a bookstore of a different sort. This one turned out to be practically perfect. (McKenzie, you'd love this place. Fred would find it nearly impossible to get you out of it.)   

It's an older home that has been converted. The rooms are small. There are lots of books, but it's not overcrowded or really even full. The lady who works there doesn't hover. There always seems to be yet another room to explore. (As fast as Fred is, he might have trouble finding you if you switch rooms frequently.) Best of all, the books are second-hand so bargains abound. 

Take a look. I did find an excellent book to buy. It's one of my old favorites. I think I'll read it once again and then donate it to our Waitakere Gardens Library. I notice that they don't have any Steinbeck. I got it for a song.   

This is the main room. The piano has been polished very recently; I can smell it. It really compliments the smell of used books.  

"This brings up another point about those mall bookstores that at some of you dislike. I think it might be the smell of new books you're actually objecting to. You've got to let books age for a while before they really smell right. The older a book gets, the better it smells."

Walking into some new bookstores smells to me like walking into a carpet showroom. A real nose-wrinkler.  

Walking into a good used bookstore is not unlike burying your nose in a pouch of aromatic pipe tobacco.  

Books welcome pipes and cigars. They shun cigarettes, stiffening their spines against them. All manner of hot, steaming beverages they view as companions, as they do the fermented, malted, or distilled, as long as these don't become rowdy.    

Did you notice the door? It's open but not because I forgot to shut it. There's a little wedge under it holding it open as an invitation to enter.  It also lets these books breathe in a hint of wind and sun on fallen leaves.   

Okay, let's wander around. I didn't look at the room layout map. I wanted to be surprised. 

Have you ever read, House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski? One of most unusual books I've ever read. It's about a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. I thought I felt just a hint of that as I wandered through this bookstore; seemed like more than just seven rooms to me...   

Mark's sister, the singer Poe, did an album Haunted, and it was released to coincide with the release of her brother's book.  Definitely worth a listen. 

Have you noticed how pleased I am with this place?  (Is that a mirror or could it be another, more distant room? And are there one or two of me?) 

I like this room. Notice the table with the books. Behind it is window that opens on to a corridor. It may look to you like the window looks directly into the garden, but that's not so. 

This is the corridor that lies just behind that window. The glass door leads into the garden. 

I would have liked to have seen a section devoted to P. G. Wodehouse. I have four first editions. A Pelican at Blandings, 1969, Galahad at Blandings, 1965, Service with a Smile, 1962, and Nothing Serious, 1951. I would have loved to find another treasure here. I didn't expect them to have a room devoted to him, but a shelf would have been nice. 

It is for this reason that I have described The Open Book as practically perfect.  

This is the book I bought today. (If you look back to my third picture, you'll see a yellow dot on the piano where I found this book displayed.)  

I love this book. I've read it many times. 

This is its opening paragraph. 

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen” and he would have meant the same thing.”

-Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

If you've never read this book, I urge you to read it soon. You'll meet characters in it you won't forget. Characters you'll come to miss if you don't return to visit now and then.    

Cannery Row is also a comfort, a balm, an indulgence, a destination.    

Hmm. So is Ponsonby Road.                                                                                 -djf