my not so secret love affair

I love books. I mean, I really really love books. I love the thrill of buying a new book. It is an amazing high. I love making lists of books that I want to read. Thrift stores and garage sales are my favorite. It is like an undiscovered treasure chest...and oh so cheap! There's something so thrilling about skimming a bookshelf, not knowing what the next spine will read. A beautiful red hardcover of A Tale of Two Cities. A like new copy of Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette. On one of my recent trips to Out of the Closet thrift store, I purchased a hardcover copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It is beautiful. It embodies everything that I love about books. It cost less than a dollar, and has a 1943 copyright date. It has that amazingly indescribable old book smell. Every time I open it, it's like stepping inside the public library (which, for me, is heaven). But this book, in particular, feels like a little slice of history. On the front page, in perfect handwriting, the kind you only see your grandma write it, is the name and address of the former owner. In addition, the date is scrawled in the top right-hand corner. It feels like this person loved this book, too. Enough to permanently mark it as their own. The book still has it's original dust jacket, stamped with a note about changing the book format, due to the government paper quota. As if this weren't enough, tucked inside the pages of the book was a brown-edged business card for an auto wrecker in Michigan. Much as I tend to use receipts as bookmarks, the former owner probably used the card. And now I'm using it to mark my place.

How did this book make the journey from Michigan to the thrift store shelf in California? Perhaps someone loved it so much that when they moved they couldn't leave it behind. Or maybe a mother gave it to her daughter, telling her of the beauty of the story. Whatever the case, I am happy that it found its way into my house, into my hands, and into my heart.