Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

A few items:

1. Okay, I really miss blogging. And I'm not getting much of anything done anyway, re the writing projects in boxes at home. Or any of the other stuff I've been worried about (though I have been painting a lot lately). So I'll come back from time to time, perhaps once a week. Promise.

2. Ryan and I agree that when we get a cat we will name him/her Hodge. Samuel Johnson's cat was named Hodge (for contrast, Alexander Pope's dog was named Bounce - I am just not a dog person, sorry, or an Alexander Pope person, for that matter).

3. Ryan runs the Boston Marathon on Monday, bib number 3041. Since the marathon is chip-timed, interested parties can track his progress on race day at the official website beginning at ten a.m. eastern time. I'll be lurking around the used bookshops of downtown Boston while he runs. Looks like the weather will be just lovely (with a fierce nor'easter due to be slamming around New England at the time). Ryan is happy running in high winds and buckets of rain. Really. It's a lot better than sun and heat, which tires him out much faster. He'd rather be waterlogged than dehydrated. I won't say what time Ryan is aiming for, but let's just say he's planning on running faster than he did last year.

4. I've been reading a lot the last few weeks and right now am halfway through the Oxford translation of La Bruyere's Characters (1688), the first work of social criticism published in France. It reminds me of Montaigne, but the sections are shorter and more maxim-like, and not as directly introspective. Here's a bit, which I read the other morning over my breakfast and felt absurdly heartened by (and it helped me decide to start blogging again, actually):

"...small change is as necessary in society as golden coin." (p.73)

5. I had a vivid dream the other night. Ryan and I were waiting in line to get into a library sale. We'd been allowed in early to look at the books but not to buy - then we had to go back outside and wait. I was first in line, and a pushy loud woman was insisting that she was first. I didn't say anything at all, but as the woman got louder and pushier, the librarians heard her and made her leave the premises. I was intent on getting into the sale, because during the preview I'd had my hands on an absolutely beautiful little book, measuring about three by five inches, bound in vellum, from the sixteenth century. I knew exactly where it was, and it had a very plain exterior - it wasn't calling attention to itself - and I was absolutely beside myself with wanting to have it in my hands again. That, and I'd told Ryan about a huge series of leatherbound books off in a corner, which someone had turned spines-to-the-wall in an attempt to hide them, and Ryan was poised to rush over and throw his overcoat on them. I awoke before the sale opened. Ryan doesn't even own an overcoat. I'm still thinking about that little book. I wonder what it was. It was so real. Sad. There, that's what booksellers dream about. Reminds me of the book title Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

6. I've decided that instead of getting discouraged because I'm not selling a lot of books right now and rashly closing the shop and trying to find a job somewhere else (Oh, the horror...), I may as well try to make some money with what I have here and now, so I've started listing some books on eBay again (I used to sell on eBay, before the shop started doing well enough so I could stop). My eBay handle is "sarahsbooks" if anyone cares to take a peek. This is not to say that anyone should buy anything - I've never used this blog to sell books and I don't want to start now. This is rather an informational tidbit. A note to say that there is money to be made on eBay if one can withstand the boredom of it. I've also been stocking up my book booth at the antiques mall up the street - during a few months this winter I sold more books there than I have here, so I may as well take the books to the browsers, if that's where they are. I do okay there, and it's right on my way home. I started my bookselling career in a group shop, years ago, and I've always kept another location going since then, it can be a good little income stream. If you tend it consistently, and work to get new stock in there, that is.

7. So, the shop lives on and I do, too. That's it for now. More next week. Thanks again to those of you who wrote in with words of encouragment and kindness, I appreciate it so much.