carolyn kellogg

When I showed up, there were bookstacks on one table and snacks on another. I divested myself of two enormous bags of books, found a beer and hid by the food. I didn’t want to be in book-acquiring range.

I spent an hour going through my stacks of in-progress books to cull those that I’d brought. It’s the privilege of writing about books that I often have a bounty, a genuine surplus. Of those that I decided I could let go, I’d read a bunch; some were duplicates; a few were old books that I’ve had for so long without reading that I decided I had to let them go, like a long-unworn dress. I was clearing space for more new good books.

Soon, of course, the baby carrots lost their allure as the far table filled with more and more books. I had to look at what everyone else had brought. At first, when I hit a thick vein of theater books and plays, I thought I’d be safe. Because I have enough books, don’t I? These are just the books that I decided I had to keep close at hand:

These are just my books-to-be-read. And it’s not even all of them. I SO DON’T NEED ANY MORE BOOKS.

That’s what I tried to tell myself.

But I caved. I have poor impulse control. I’m a collector, a victim of my own desires. Call it what you will, I could not leave the book swap without bringing books home with me.  And these are what put me over the edge:

Drowned Hopes by Donald Westlake. He just died, I haven’t read him, and here was a lovely hardcover looking for a home. It was the book that broke my resolve.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Isn’t it time I read Roth again?

Generation X by Douglas Coupland. I read this way back when, but didn’t deign to own it. It was the book that spawned the label for my generation. Now I’m curious: will I find slightly off the mark as I did in 1991?

DeMille: A Man and His Pictures by Gabe Essoe and Raymond Lee. God, I’m a sucker for silent film histories.

Why am I typing? I should be reading.