A few weeks ago, I shared my Sunday Stack. I thought I’d offer another installment today. Tell me, are we dating the same authors? Are we seeing the same books?
I spent Small Business Saturday away from the crowds. No malls, no traffic, no crowds for me. I jumped in my car, put on the opera Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky (if you like opera and don’t know this one, please give it a listen), and drove 45 minutes north to Henniker NH. I was intent on spending an afternoon, hopefully sneeze-free, amongst used books.
Henniker is home to New England College and two amazing used bookstores, the Henniker Book Farm (40,000 books!) and Old Number Six Depot (160,000 books! They don’t have an online presence, but you can watch this video. Definitely bucket list worthy).
I bought 9 books. Why so few? First, budget. Second, budget. Yes, even though they are used books. It’s still budget. Third, I didn’t want to be greedy, presumptuous, gluttonous (or embarrassed when I walked in the door with yet more books). You’ll find some photos and a short description of each find below.
Henniker Book Farm
First, a warning, no bathroom here. I learned that the hard way. After I remedied that situation at the Dunkin Donuts down the road, I settled into browse the 40,000 books that were stacked tightly with great efficiency into the barn. Warmed by a centrally located pellet stove, I browsed to my heart’s content until I landed on three:
A Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon - I was introduced to Jane Kenyon recently by my Substack friend Amy who writes
. While I didn’t find her poetry (I found plenty of Donald Hall), I did find this book which has a selection of her essays, interviews and newspaper columns. It also includes Kenyon’s free-verse translations of poetry by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who she described as her inspiration and muse. As a Russian Language and Lit major who spent time in bookstores in Russia, I hold very dear a very cheap 1990 printing of Akhmatov’s poetry. The synchronicity was too great to pass up!Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff - I’ve been a Wolff fan ever since I read Bullet in the Brain. Author-curated short story anthologies are a guilty pleasure of mine. Over 30 stories for $8 in a nice hard-backed book.
Elizabeth Bowen: A Biography by Victoria Glendinning - Thanks to a friend of mine who is a Bowen expert, she will recognize herself in the list of books purchased at Old Number Six below, I’ve become a fan of Bowen’s short stories and more recently her novels. I’m currently making my way through The Death of The Heart. I’m intrigued by her writing style and her haunted themes.
I was able to chat briefly with the owner, Lacey Brown, asking her how she manages to keep such a deep bench of Literary Criticism books on her shelves. That section was easily the same size as the modern fiction shelves.
Lacey shared that both of the previous owners were professors at New England College and had built the Literary Criticism section significantly over time prior to her ownership. I had been looking for a copy of Willa Cather’s My Antonia (I’m somewhat obssesed with early 1900’s women writers, particularly American). She said she wished she had a copy and would put it on her search list but suggested that I check out another bookstore in town: The Old Number Six Book Depot. She said it had three times as many books as hers (in reality, it has 4x). My jaw dropped. I thanked her, wished her happy Saturday sales, and high-tailed it to Old Number Six.
Old Number Six Book Depot
Apparently, my limit of three books per store needed to be expanded given that Old Number Six Book Depot has 160,000 books to choose from! It’s open from 10 am to 5 pm every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas (and possibly a few other holidays) and owned (and manned when I was there) by Ian Morrison, a former teacher and bibliophile who opened the store with his wife in 1976.
My haul from Old Number Six numbered… was six books:
First, I had been hunting for some A.S. Byatt given her passing a week ago. I bought:
Possession, The Children’s Book, and Sugar & Other Stories - if you have read any of these and want to exclaim your love for them without any spoilers, please do!
Then I purchased some books related to my current author interests:
O Pioneers! by Will Cather - the copy wasn’t special (1990 Reader’s Digest with illustration), but it was very sweet. O Pioneers! is Cather’s 1913 popular novel about early settler life in Nebraska, particularly that of new immigrants from Europe to the United States. I’m currently enjoying on Audible her other popular classic, My Antonia. Have you read it?
The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen - I have this collection on Kindle but I like it so much that I needed the hard copy to hold in my hand. My all-time favorite (so far) is “The Demon Lover”.
And, last (saving it because it was the best serendipity ever), was this purchase:
How Will The Heart Endure by Heather Bryant Jordan (now Heather Corbally Bryant) - Published in 1992, this book is the result of my friend Heather’s scholarship on Elizabeth Bowen. Even better, this book was signed by my friend and given as a gift to someone by her parents. So, here I was with a signed (and meaningfully so) copy of her oeuvre!
As I checked out at the front desk, the owner Ian, slowly and meticulously wrote out my receipt. Each book I bought was somewhere between $6 and $8. He chugged along until he got to the last one and when he opened the cover, his eyes grew wider, and he let out a little “oh!”. I laughed and told him about my connection to the author. Let’s just say, while it was not in the $6 to $8 range, it was definitely cheaper than Amazon’s price. But, that was beside the point. The find, the inscription, the serendipity was priceless.
The rest of the day I spent writing my NaNoWriMo novel (I passed 50,000 words this week - woohoo!), hanging out with my husband, and trying to cram in the rest of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf so that I could watch The Hours. I have 25 pages left and then I can let myself watch it. Have you seen the movie? I started it and then realized I had to finish the book first.
My reading habits are on hyperspeed currently. As a teen and adult, I rarely picked up any nonfiction or fiction book that weren’t related in some way to World War II, the Soviet Union, Russia or Eastern Europe. I’m now cramming American and English literature, particularly those written by women. I can’t explain exactly why; chalking up all of my idiosyncracies these days to “mid-life.”
Please share what you are reading this weekend or what is in your queue to read. Do we have any books in common?
Rather than draw my Sunday Stack this time, I decided to include a photo of my “Henniker Haul” sitting comfortably in a very small bookcase that holds some of my soul (see my recent post on how bookcases can be homes for our souls) in my dining room.
Two stores that are in my backyard, so to speak, and I’ve yet to visit them... I’m so glad you found a copy of Kenyon’s A Hundred White Daffodils--it’s one of my favorites. In lieu of me posting anything here, you’ve inspired me to finally write that book/bookshelf post I mentioned last week. Stay tuned!
Big fan of Willa Cather. Have several of her works on my list for 2024. Great finds!