Friday, September 05, 2008

"I'm a bookseller, sir."

Here's a fine graphic short story about bookselling.

When I was little, my favorite book to check out of the Carnegie Library was a collection of Danish nursery rhymes called It's Raining Said John Twaining by N.M. Bodecker.

The poems stuck with me—"Me, and I, and You/sailed in a wooden shoe"—even though the title of the book didn't, and in college, I mentioned it offhand to the person I was dating. I wondered about the book, what it was called, if I'd ever see it again, etc. (This was pre-Google. Pre-internet searches of any kind, in fact.)

A couple of months after this brief conversation, we were in a St. Vincent DePaul thrift store, probably looking for coats or ugly paintings for our apartment. She walked off for a few minutes, and when she returned, she had a copy of that book. "Is this what you were talking about?"

It was. I nearly wept. I read them all aloud to her that night.

Ever been reunited with a book? Tell us about it.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comment! We love hearing from you.

tell all your friends!