Book Manifestos hoisting the sails

I spent close to 3 hours at the bookstore today. There is something about small homey bookstores that has always enamored me into an altered state of small town happiness. I have used amazon.com many times to buy books and find myself wandering aimlessly online for hours, reading reviews, trying to figure out if it is the book that will change the rest of my life. The cheaper route may seem more user friendly, but I feel like crap after 3 hours of "browsing". Small bookstores creek when you walk into them. The walls are full of deep mahogany colored bookshelves and the binds sit there perfectly resting in their places colorful and molding into the walls. I scan the aisles for a color, a word, a instinct of some sort that will send me the book. I pick it up. It feels soft to the touch and usually gives off an unyielding sense of what it is about before I even can turn it over. I officially get lost. Only the ring of the bell hanging on the front door startles me with a close behind, "hello, how are you" phrase thrown out by the easygoing literary graduate calmly sitting behind the check out counter. Small conversations ensue, talk of local happenings, book talk, shit talk, then someone orders a latte over in the coffee corner and they are on their way to book heaven.

When I was about 16 and first started driving I came upon a used bookstore in the town I grew up in. It looked like a shack off another building and behind some other bigger building. It had corrugated iron walls and looked like it may just fall over if you took too many books off one of the shelves. At that age it was the first bookstore that literally consumed me for hours. I remember buying "The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life" there and feeling like I had a key to a lost door somewhere after that. It became a haven for me to escape home, friends, cars.....until one day it disappeared. Eventually the big box bookstores came in and swiped all those little guys right up. I can't even remember now where that store was or what it even looked like. It is almost as if it was just a fragment in my mind of a time and place that I can visualize the experience of, but have no idea the exact location.

I showed up at the townseller bookstore in Basalt last year the day they were closing. I was in shock and still drive by that spot and mourn its loss and the taking of town vitality with it.

So I try to keep the feel alive by buying books local. I am very pleased with the fact that in 1 week I will have an unmeasurable amount of freetime to lay in a hammock and read books. For me, this is a beautiful thing after many months where the activity of reading a book came not enough and when it did come the words all mashed together as I thought of what I was going to do the next day in the back of my head. After 3 pages I realized I wasnt paying attention then immediately after that it was time for sleep.
So here is what I picked up:

"The Thing about Life is that one Day you'll be Dead" -David Shields-biography, philosophy, biological science, culture- Basically the writers journey of seeing his father dying and analyzing what it means to be alive through not only philosophical and psychological avenues but also through scientific ones

"Blessed Unrest" - Paul Hawken - About groups, individuals, organizations that are working towards making positive changes in social movement, environmental issues and overall global justice

"Exuberance- The Passion for Life" Kay Redfield Jamison- A book about the human spirit and the power of exuberance- lots of awards, I love the word exuberance and always think we all need a little more, so why not?


"A Fraction of the Whole"- Steve Toltz- A nice long funny fiction about family, some crazy travel, love ambition. Always nice to have a long fiction for the long peaceful nights by candlelight in the beach shack travels

I want to pick up a Tom Robbins book as well. I miss his literary exuberance and his knack for metaphors that shake the earth on my axis. Not sure what I will bring yet but hope they all include a concoction of inspiration, audacity, mediation, sex, grace, mortality, knowledge, and some little twinges of itty bitty book worm laughter.