The Joy of Second-hand Books
I’m fascinated by chess, but in a cold-war, eastern verses western bloc, clandestine-sexiness kind of way. So let me tell you how that obsession came to be a link to my sweetheart's past.
Is there anything more precious, a jewel rarer, than a second-hand book?
I’ll tell you why they are so much more than musky smelling, yellow paged, brittle stained elderly pieces of paper. They are, in fact, a talisman to the our past.
As a history amateur-aficionado, second-hand, vintage, antique are all well versed vocabulary I use when scouring through my bookshelf (and wardrobe, and touring through my house-hold objects, ornaments, crockery…etc). I just treasure a second-hand find!
Now, let’s not over-romanticise a second-hand bookstore. Damp, kitsch in the uncool sense of the word, moldy dust clinging to the air and nostrils, and most often hidden behind haphazard piles of old books you’ll find a battleaxe of an owner who ducks further among the book-fort in a desperate effort to desist the disturbing of their slumber, second-hand bookshops aren’t always the cosiest of places to frequent. And if you’re thinking of entering with a book in mind, think again - it is nigh impossible to go in with an aim, as I found on my trip to the book-town in Wales: Hey-on-Wye. Could I find an early edition of my favourite book: I Captured the Castle, in any of the dozens of bookstores nestled in the higgledy cobbled streets? Goodness, no. You don’t tell a second-hand bookstore what you want, it tells you.
Oh, but of course this makes a discovery that much sweeter for the hunt. I now own many a book I never thought existed: Shakespeare and that Crush by Richard Dark, this early edition has not only the quirkiest cover but a handwritten inscription gifting the book from The Commissioners of Inland Revenue in 1930, ‘with love’. A sickeningly sweet pink edition of Ariel, complete with bright hot pink wilting tulips, was my introduction to Plath; beautiful inside and out. Specialised cook books - one on Wines of the Cape: part informational, part cookbook/wine pairing manual, and the other a book on cooking for love: Venus in the Kitchen. A first edition Alice In Wonderland - need I say more? These are to name but a few. Each of my second-hand books are a character of their own, whether it be from their annotation from previous owners or through their kooky book covers, illuminating the style of the time.
As you might be able to tell, I’ve become a little obsessive about second-hand books, not only for their historical connections but I’ve taken to exclusively buying earlier editions of modern classics, usually when suggested to read by my book club group. The reason being is the earlier covers are just usually the most beautiful - much like many aspects of the past, there is an attention to the detail and beauty of book covers designed in previous eras. This spiraling addiction lead to me accidentally ordering a 70’s edition of Lolita - in Italian. What can I say, the cover was too luscious to pass up: a caramel colored cover with a chocolate-brown border which frames in the center a sepia-tone picture of a 60’s looking starlet. And the back obviously adorned with Italian words which without any Italian speaking capabilities, are to me a piece of artwork of their own. This resulted in my listening to the story on audiobook, which, with Jermery Irons as the narrator, was ultimately the correct way to consume that book.
Second-hand books are a connector in humanity, they bring us closer to one another in a multi-layered way that goes beyond one human connecting with another through their writing, but they connect us on a non-physical plane as well as a physical one.
It’s the beauty of my coffee barista telling me of his hunt to find a book of poems by Frank O’Hara. Without any luck finding one to purchase new, this lead to finding a big ol’ dusty copy of his complete works in the university library (the library of course being the ultimate second-hand book hangout!), and being humbled by the checkout note which spanned back to the sixties where a young women, a student like himself, checked out the very same book once upon a time. Thumbing at the same pages, marveling at the same printed words, and smiling at the ghostly etched markings in it’s margins, of students of old, underlying their favourite poems, writing tiny notes - was an experience he warmly shared with me, over the blast of steamed milk prepped for my morning flat white. Connection upon connection - through the writer himself and the people who read his words.
It’s also the shimmering joy of a piece of past that is unknowingly gifted - the very act I had completed in the form of a Christmas present for my boyfriend. To set the scene, it’s important to know that despite only recently being taught how to play, by my lovingly patient boyfriend, I’ve always been fascinated with chess. As a student of Cold War history, chess has held a very clandestine, mystical power over me, there’s a strange sexy glamour it has; intellectuals, people of great power and exemplar play chess, it’s the ultimate metaphor for strategy and war, what a fitting game to be heralded against the backdrop of the most intense historical, global, political-stalemate. Therefore, it was decided, that along with a chess set, I would purchase my love a book on how to play chess (which felt like the fitting accompanying gift), one with cheat sheets and strategies on how to best opponents. And of course, I was after an edition not only written in the Cold-War era but by a Russian chess master - to really round off the ambience I was attempting to create with my thoughtful gift. To make my second-hand search even harder a specific edition with a blue and white tiled cover (almost Mediterranean in it’s design) was the only edition I sort fit to purchase.
After many months of googling, sending emails to vintage suppliers, being duped by sites and ordering incorrect editions, I finally found and bought the exact copy I was after - the desired cover, delicate with age but in a good enough condition that this only added character, and an early edition that made me feel implausibly closer to the author himself. What truly made this discovery great, however, was the gasp from my boyfriend after opening to the first page on Christmas morning, and seeing an inscription from the previous owner. This inscription marked it’s ownership in the exact town in New York state my he had grown up in during his teens - a mere two roads away from his previous home. What were the chances, this book, written and published decades ago, by a man from a all too different country, passed through many hands and, through my own obsessive avocation, reached through time and space to join one’s past life with a present moment. Our own stories (mine and my love’s), becoming unwittingly connected through a single vintage book.
This is all to say, second-hand books are more than just books, they are little pieces of identity that stitch together a connectivity that is transcendent of time and reality. Bridging us on an emotional, cosmic level, a thing only humanity can create and define. I hope my cultivated bookshelves are treasured with a knowing kinship by others, and bring what I can only describe as real magic, in the future.