Travel

I'm flying to San Francisco tomorrow to visit some friends for a few days. As always Ill pack a few books and, as always, I'll forgo cracking a single one of them open, opting instead for International CNN or an overpriced and ever so slightly out-of-date magazine.

So, why do I do it? And why do I risk taking a library book on a flight, increasing the risk of losing it?

I think, in part, because books are like travel companions, especially when traveling alone. Even on a brief trip, even an unread book can keep you anchored, reminding you either of home or a need to explore.

As it is, I rarely leave home without my copy of New Goose by Lorine Niedecker. It's small, readable, and something you just don't encounter at every library or Barnes & Noble. Even if I am just walking to and from work.

Pretentious? Possibly. Well, probably. And I've been known to carry even worse with me, say, James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men or Joyce's Ulysses. Why? Well, God forbid, but what if something happened? What if I got lost, or worse? Who better than Agee or Niedecker having your back when approaching a complete stranger for help?

Sometimes you pick the author, the library picks the book

I'm always on the lookout for Western authors. Not Western in the sense of Louis L'Amour or Zane Gray, but 20th Century to the present, perhaps embodied by Wallace Stegner or possibly even Raymond Chandler.

So I was excited to read in this Westword blog post about John Fante, in honor of his 99th birthday. Fante, who died in 1983, was an under-the-radar author from Colorado. Apparently his childhood experiences in Colorado shape and shade many of his writings, though many take place in California. I also learned that he inspired and influenced Charles Bukowski, but I won't hold that against him.

The author of at least ten novels, multiple short stories and screenplays, the Denver Public Library has plenty of his titles amongst their holdings. The one I found when I stopped at the Central Library on a break this afternoon was The Brotherhood of the Grape. I know next to nothing about this title written by an author I know next to nothing about.

But I am looking forward to getting started.

The March Tally

Mismanagement of my fantasy baseball team and a seventeen-month-old with an ear infection have kept my hands full of late, but I will get back into the swing of things as I have several observations and items to share about not buying books.

After three months I am surprised at how easy it has been to acclimate to what I thought would be a major shift in my spending and reading habits. Maybe it is the ease with which I can reserve books online, or that the library is so close to my work. Three months into this thing I have not had a major urge to buy a book.

I will be curious to see if that trend continues as the days get longer and, more importantly, hotter. Not being a native, I find Colorado summers rather unpleasant. Many people hole up and read during winter, perhaps I will reverse that trend and increase my reading – and perhaps my desire for books – in the summer.

More on that later, let’s take a look at the March tally:

I checked out 12 books this month. One of these books I acquired via Prospector. I am proud to report I actually finished a few of them, including Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear.

Of these 12 books, I determined that I would definitely have bought 7 of them. These books would have cost roughly $95.25.

When I plug these numbers into the Denver Public Library's "Library Value Calculator," for my 12 books (1 of which was an inter library loan):

My individual return on investment for March was $45.69. This means for every dollar in taxes I spend on the library, I received $45.69 value in return for the month.

In addition, the Library Value Calculator reports that for the month of March I received a monthly value of $190.00.

More soon!