I don’t often get to write posts like these. Most of the books I read these days are electronic galleys from NetGalley and Edelweiss or kindle books I’ve purchased myself. (Damn you, one-click purchasing!)
Last Saturday, I got to visit Sam Weller in Salt Lake City. This is the first time I’ve been to their new location. Last time I was there, I spent over an hour combing through their labyrinthine shelves of used books, looking for treasure. Their new location is similar to Portland’s Powell’s Books. New books are shelved with old. There are nooks for genres everywhere. And the staff are keen to help or just talk books.
I would have stayed longer at Sam Weller, but the battery in my phone died and I couldn’t access my goodreads app to see my to-read list. Still, I went home with a good stack of books.
From the top:
- Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
- My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk
- Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
- Time’s Arrow, by Martin Amis
- Babayaga, by Toby Barlow
- A Land More Kind Than Home, by Wiley Cash
I was very tempted by an illustrated edition of Henry Fielding’s A History of Tom Jones, but I let that one go. I’m more a reader than a collector.
Since I didn’t have my to-read list handy, I was just picking up books that I’d heard of, had read and wanted copies of, or just had interesting covers and more interesting blurbs. It was, if you’ll forgive the pun, a novel experience to just browse. I usually know exactly what I want going into a bookstore.
When I came home with my haul, a look around my shelves let me know it was time to do a bit more weeding. At one point, when I was a teenager, I had about a thousand books. I weeded out hundreds from my collection when I moved to another state after grad school. I weeded again when I moved into my house. I didn’t think I had anything left that I could bear to get rid of, but there’s now a small stack of books that need new homes because I’ve finally admitted that I’m not going to read this book or reread that one.