John Doull's in Halifax
First of all I am not a Luddite. What is a Luddite; you ask? Why you young whippersnappers. When I was your age I had to walk to school eight miles, uphill both ways. What is a whippersnapper anyways? Luddites were 16th century textile workers who often threw their sabots or wooden shoes into the wooden gears of the looms they were forced to work in order to intentionally damage them. This became known as sabotage. They were fighting the progress that was stealing the need for their talent and forcing them to accept a much lower standard of living. But I embrace change. I love gadgets. I own an eBook and an IPad and an IPod. I love them for what they are and what they can do. I love that you can download the latest book in seconds and often the old masters like Conan Doyle or Hemingway can be bought cheaply or even downloaded for free. I love that you can change font sizes, switch from single page to open book format and turn the backlight on and off. I love that you can have many books in one small device, eliminating the need to carry many heavy tomes. If you were; for example a businessman who enjoyed reading Harlequin romances you would not have to endure the disapproving glances of your fellow subway riders as the eBooks cover is totally generic. There is much to love about the new format. It’s shiny stuff attracts the jackdaw in me.
The eBook and the Kindle is only the latest format to come along in the modern; build a better mousetrap race to improve everything. There have been books on vinyl, books on tape, and books on CD. All of which had their followers. There may have even been books on 8 track, I don’t remember I was too busy blow drying my hair (yes I had hair) and gluing shag carpet onto the back dash of my Gremlin. I must confess that as much as I like to be thought of as the cool Uncle with the IPad. I also have a collection of books that fit into a different category. It has a lot going for it too. It requires no batteries, is recyclable, can be read in the bathtub and will not crash on you. They are called books on paper.
All right so I might be a bit of a Luddite. I once threw a pair of red plastic Crocks in the fan belt of my F-150 when it refused to start. I love BOOKS! I love the feel of a paperback in my back pocket, to be whipped out while riding on top of a wagon full of hay so I wouldn’t waste the five minute ride back to the barn. I loved leaning against a giant Oak on campus and stealing a few minutes from a busy school day to spend with anything other than required reading. I love the smell of new books their spines still tight and their pages crisp. I love the smell of old books their pages like cloth from repeated use. Used books and; ooooooooh, used book stores. I am drooling thinking of their cluttered stacks. Give me a good honest used book store any day. Like John W. Doulls on Barrington Street in Halifax. It is everything a used book lover could want. There are book shelves; to be sure, miles of them spread over two floors. But the books don’t end there. Books are over door frames and in piles in the aisles. There are boxes of new acquisitions in the front window, still unfiled. John is a man well suited to his calling he is bearded and bookish and ask him, just ask him for that coveted volume; that treasured tome. He will know exactly where to find it. In the world of used books I am a man with tunnel vision. When I approach most store owners cringe. They want customers with wide and varied interests. They wantmen and women who search the stacks with binoculars not a magnifying glass. They want multiple sales and wide interests. But they also need the guys like me. Guys like me who will shell out often more than a hundred bucks for the right book; albeit a very specific book.
I first crossed John’s path a fair many years ago. I had leant a copy of my favorite book to a friend and that friend had not returned to book. Now before you think my friend some sort of cad, some unfeeling bum let me explain. The book was what you might say less than great condition. It was a paperback copy of Fishing With Gregory Clark by the reporter and correspond ant Gregory Clark. It was the Totem Press edition and it had seen better days. Better days when it had been bleached by summer sun and soaked in spring rains. In battered my hip pocket while hiking back to the lake. It was stained with bug dope from days when the fish weren’t biting but the flies were. It’s pages were soft like cloth and it sort of wilted in your hand when you held it. It was tired but like I feel at the end of a long day, it must have been satisfied; proud, fulfilled. It had lived up to the promise of its’ author. It had provided me with countless hours of joy. I knew every story in it by heart. Stories like Bick’s Crick, The Purist or A Sportsman is One. When it was gone it was like a piece of me was gone.
My hopes were not high when I walked into Doullls. I made my way to the second floor where the sporting section was. I had spent a wonderful twenty minutes lost in the stacks of books. For books are everywhere here. They are on window sills and on door frames; in piles on the floors. The place smells, but not of must or even dust but of venerable age. It smells just the way a used/rare/antique book store should. When I handed my books to the lady clerk she said; matter-of-factly. “Did you find everything you were looking for?” “Well, no actually.” I replied a little hesitantly. She allowed her eyes to rise from the fly page she was penciling a selling price on as is the habit in the trade. “Oh?” she asked cocking an eyebrow. “I was looking for Fishing With Gregory Clark” I stated as if it were a can of Campbell’s soup. “Do you know it?” I asked. She did not; from the look on her face. It was then that I noticed John. He was standing behind her and he was beaming.”I do!” he said with some pride. I like a man who loves books. “Do you have it?” I asked hopefully. “I do.” He replied without the exclamation point. “There!” He pointed to a stack of boxes by the door. “Just arrived.” He whispered conspiratorially. “A widow clearing out her husband’s treasures.” He took the top off an apple box full of hardbound books. The revelation that it had come from a Widow did not surprise me. Clark had been a veteran of the First World War, a correspondent in the second and was one of the most widely read Canadians in the thirties, forties and Fifties. He had never retired not officially anyways. He died in his eighties about the time that I had discovered him. “First edition, hardcover with dust jacket.” John said proffering the book. I took it from him with reverence. It was like being handed the family Bible. I opened the cover. There was no notation yet on the fly leaf. John noted my glance and quickly added “I haven’t marked it yet.” “It is for sale?” I enquired. “They’re all for sale.” He said with a grin. “Seventeen dollars sound fair?” It did indeed and I nodded. John wasn’t finished. “You might be interested in these. He took three more books out of the box all hardcovers and all in as good condition. “I’ll do the three for forty five.” “Done.” I replied. He had sold four books in less than a minute.
There have been other memorable finds in Doull’s “Fun with Dick and Jane” for my wife. He would save many other copies of Greg Clark for me. I look for them every year. John has an inner sanctum where he keeps the good stuff. I have never been able to walk in but I have seen in when he has fetched a pricy piece of antique or collectable prose. The book is also an artifact. It has a story to tell that is writ large on it’s’ pages but not in ink; not leastways in the publisher’s ink. Books often bear inscriptions. Most are by their authors but also by people gifting a book to another. I have often found these moving or puzzling or both. An endorsement from a parent wishing that a child get as much joy from a book as they had; which begs the question “Did they?” An endorsement of a special book given on a special day; a graduation or a wedding or anniversary that leaves me feeling voyeuristic when I read it. There are sometimes student’s notes and underlined passages and I love to read these to see if the reader got the same thing out of the book or passage that I did. I often think of the widow who sold her husband’s books and how his once loved copies of Greg Clark had found a new and welcome home. I wonder what he would think of a second generation falling in love with the author’s works and would he be happy that they had found a good home. I once had to pack up the books and music of a deceased colleague and I could not help but feel a connection to a man I had never met because we owned so many of the same books and CDs. How that apple box was like a biography of that woman’s lost love. I wish I could have looked through it with more detail.
Very often I come across other artifacts in used books. So many things get used as book marks. I have found letters and bills, shopping lists and a photo of a child. I have found movie and theater tickets. One day I ran across Barrington in the rain while waiting for the bus. I bought a book from Doull’s and returned in time to catch the number ten Dartmouth which was always late when it rained. Inside the book was a bus ticket from exactly ten years earlier. It was for the very bus I was sitting on. Had someone read this very book on this very bus ten years ago that day? It sent a shiver down my spine. I once paid five bucks for a book only to find a ten dollar American bill inside the book. On another occasion in Doull’s I spotted a copy of “The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes” the exact edition that my beloved Grandmother had given me as a child. I had read it until it fell apart, and every other Holmes book that Conan Doyle had written. I scooped the book up with great joy and it still graces my bookshelf. It is a treasured memory of my Grammy.
None of this will ever happen with a Kindle or eReader. No one will hand their IPad to a friend when they are done with it, like they do a book. There will be no story written in the flyleaf of a Kindle. No tear stains on the pages. No poignant notes as bookmarks. I doubt the electronic media will kill the paper book no more than vinyl or books on tape did. They will do what they do best and hopefully spread the good word of great writers to a new generation. There is always a price for progress. The phone can keep you connected but it costs you some privacy. The jet plane gets you there faster but you lose some of the leisure of a trans-Atlantic voyage. Progress is good but I hope the new mousetrap does not kill the old one entirely. We still have the option to take a cruise or write a letter. Hopefully when I am dead and gone someone will walk into a used bookstore and ask for my copy of Fishing With Gregory Clark. Maybe there will be an owner like John whose eyes will sparkle when he opens the box. I promise the new owner not to cackle too loud when he or she opens the cover. There is nothing like good, old fashioned progress.
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