By Its Cover

Monday Ginny and I carried 200 books in four boxes to Chamblain’s Book Mine, a prominent Jacksonville used book store, to trade in for credit.

This is part of our clean-the-house-and-reduce-clutter campaign. After all, having eleven bookcases in this tiny home crowds us a bit; and when we paint the bedroom, we’re going to have to move all those boxes of books under the bed somewhere.

Chamblain’s contains a massive collection of used books. It spreads floor-to-ceiling through three buildings in a labyrinth of aisles.

Here’s a 2006 photo I snapped of Ginny browsing there for books:

For years the store sported a sign in the window:

WE SPECIALIZE IN OLD, RARE, UNUSUAL, OUT-OF-PRINT AND NON-EXISTENT BOOKS!

Every book lover understands that happy sign perfectly.

Years ago, I was Chamblain’s first customer. Mr. Chamblain bought the store from its Shelby Street location and moved it, under his own name, to Hershel Street. Late one night as I drove by I noticed him inside unpacking and getting ready for the grand opening of the store. He had the front door propped open as he unloaded boxes of books so I walked in and bought a five volume set of Samuel Pepys’ Diary — Mr. Chamblain’s first sale after he bought the business. That was over 25 years ago and although the location has moved again, I’ve been coveting items in his collection ever since. Our children still shop at Chamblain’s often.

Culling my own library pains me. I must abandon my mind-set as an archivist and keep only those books I actually read or use for research. I mean, honestly, will I ever read that 1901 biography of President William McKinley even though it was published just weeks after his assassination?

No. It had to go.

But nothing points out my grasping materialism more than having to cull a book from my collection. I always think of some reason to hold tight to every volume.

Yesterday, customers thronged the bookstore. When we arrived, we felt lucky to find a parking space far from the door.

I lugged our boxes of books to the desk to be evaluated for trade-in credit. Over 20 customers had placed their own boxes and bags of books at the desk ahead of me.

While Ginny browsed deep in the stacks, I watched Scott, the young man who processed these incoming books to see whether or not to buy them for the store.

He worked like a fury!

More and more customers with armloads of books came in and stacked their treasures around him. I timed him as he evaluated each book and decided whether to accept or reject it.

As close as I could tell, he processed at least 40 books per minute!

I do not know the exact criteria he used, but he looked at condition, cover, wear, subject matter, author, re-sale value, and a host of other factors, then decided about each book. He rejected outright more books than he accepted.

At a rate of 40+ books per minute!

He’s done this for years and his experience makes him efficient.

Yet, it saddens me to compare that man’s speed in evaluating books with the fact that for my own books sometimes I have spent days tracing just the right fact, just the right word to include in the books I write…

I did include one book I’d written in the stack and I watched Scott reject it at a glance — justly so, it was not suitable for his shelves.

But that saddened me nonetheless.

A funny incident:

One book I culled from my own shelves was a copy of The Bible And The New York Times by Fleming Rutledge.

Scott accepted that one.

But, just as he did, Ginny appeared beside me from out of the stacks excited because she’d found a copy of a book she was sure I wanted, it was a copy of The Bible And The New York Times by Fleming Rutledge!

She was buying the same book I was trading in!

Scott got a good laugh at our confusion and gave me back my copy of Rutledge. We didn’t have to buy that same book again.

Oh well, as the Scripture says, “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh”.

How true.