Ghostwriting No. 7: On the Motion and Entropy of Libraries

Several times now in the years that I have owned the Haunted, I have been called to purchase the collections of a deceased person, and in some of those cases, the deceased was a regular at the shop. A few times, they were even friends.

This week, I learned that another of my regulars, one with whom I had frequent conversations about books we enjoyed, one who introduced me to some of my favorite writers and to whom I introduced other writers, had passed on. I'm not suggesting that the loss I feel is comparable to what his close friends and family are feeling, but there is a kind of grief that a book dealer feels upon repurchasing the collection of a regular.

I remember particular books from this collection. There were a few that a different friend sold to me before leaving the country, so there is a kind of bittersweet fondness I feel at seeing those particular volumes again. There were others I didn't even know the deceased would have been interested in reading. I regret not learning about that interest while he was alive. I regret not having spoken to him about a few authors I'd only recently found. I regret that I can't remember the last time I saw him. Not exactly. Maybe the memory I have of the time he bought these two books over here was actually his last visit to the store. I wish I knew.

You've all probably heard my rueful cracks on the subject of how little a book dealer gets to read. The hours involved in running a small business of any kind tend to cut into reading time. But I don't mind as much as you might think, because for me, there are other narratives to follow. There are small children who now recognize letters and words, with whom I can now have conversations, whose first weeks in this world I remember. There are young people now leaving for college who have been regulars at the shop since they were in middle or even elementary school. There are readers who have shifted interests from one type of book to another. And there are those who came to the shop, conversed with me, traded books in, bought books, met friends, played word or board games here, helped during the flood or the move, whose libraries I am now selling, volume by volume, to other readers. Every time I sell one of these books, I am tempted to stop the buyer and say, "This book belonged to a friend of mine." Once I even begged a customer to buy the second of a two-volume series to keep the books together, for the sake of the memory of the former owner. Other times I make a point of recommending another author that the deceased former owner liked, in case the new owner might like that author too.

Maybe that's crazy. But I knew these people through their libraries, and this is the only tribute I can think of to make in memory of these deceased patrons.

So this week I had to close the book of my friendship with a particular regular. I don't think I will ever feel - with him or with anyone else who visits this shop as a patron - that I read enough of the story. Some of the books from his collection have already sold, and many I will never see again, because at this time of year a lot of paperbacks go on airplanes with people just passing through. Some I may see again if the new owner has to sell books before moving elsewhere. But I feel like there's a volume missing from my shelves now that I'll never find again, a rare book that passed through my hands that I won't be able to replace, the introduction to which I read but the real story of which I may never know.

To our friends and guests at the Haunted: If you buy a book in the next few weeks and catch me looking a little sad as I hand it to you, know that you are taking part of a story with you. Do the book, and its former owner, the honor of letting that book mean something to you. Tell me about it, if you like. I'd like to know. I want to believe that these books, arriving at the shop with more meaning than their pages convey, will go out and accrue meaning among other people whose stories I would like, however briefly, to know.

To the absent reader whose books I am now selling: Remember that time we talked about philotes? Maybe there's something to that idea of the balance of literary matter and conscience energy. I want there to be. For your sake and for mine. Maybe I'll tell that one kid about it - the kid you introduced to Stanislaw Lem - he's old enough now to understand the corollary that losing you has made me consider: that the story behind a particular copy of a book can affect the way another reader understands it. We'll call it the Terebithia Corollary to Matt's Theorem.