Book Lovers Anonymous

Hello, my name is Art….and I’m a bibliophile.

Hi, Art!

I know they say the first step on the road to recovery is to realize that you have a problem. So, I confess here that I do have a problem when it comes to books. Actually, I have two problems. One is, I don’t have enough book shelf space for all my books. The second problem is, I’m not independently wealthy so I can afford all the books I want.

On Saturday night Erin and I had a hot date. Iowa’s Right to Life organization was having a book sale to raise money. (The Right to life group supports pro-life issues, kind of the opposite of Planned Parenthood, who thinks it’s ok to slaughter innocent little babies as long as it’s in utero. Sorry about the rant.) Anyway, this Saturday was their last night of the sale, and you could stuff a box full of books for only $5. So Erin and I got a babysitter and hightailed it over to Clive, Ia. where the sale was going on. Now, being that it was the last night, the pickings were slim. But I did find a few treasures, and lots of books I probably wouldn’t have bought, but since I could get as many books as I wanted, I loaded up. If it even looked interesting, into the box it went! I managed to cram about two boxes worth into one box. I was willing to pay 10 bucks for it, but the nice lady at the register said it was ok. I was on a rush all night long! It was great. I think we ended up with something around 50 books.

When I was a teenager a local thrift store used to run sales where you could stuff a grocery bag full of books for $1. I got all kinds of books at those sales. Most of them I never got around to reading. Some of them I would take to other used bookstores who bought or traded books and get a nice little profit on my $1 investment. What would I buy with the money? More books! If only the Internet and e-bay had been around, then I really could have had some fun!

I found a great website called www.cheapestbookprice.com. You can find a link for it under my “favorite links” section (it’s called “Cheap Books”). It’s awesome. You type in the book you’re looking for, and it searches all websites like Amazon.com, Half.com, etc. to find you the cheapest deal. For Amazon, it even searches the used books people are selling, not just the new editions. I’m not sure if it searches ebay though, so you might want to check there before you make your final purchase.

I’m really excited about a book I just bought on Amazon, with a little help from cheapestbookprice.com. It’s called “I Lay My Life Down” and it’s a biography about Joyce Kilmer, who was a WWI soldier and a published poet. He was killed during the war, but his poems lived on! (Sorry about the cliche, but it’s true.) His poem, “The Trees” became one of the most popular poems of the time. Many elderly people I speak to remember learning that poem is school. Nowadays the only poems kids learn are the words to the latest Puff Doggy rap garbage, or whatever the guy’s name is. I actually heard a few times that rappers were today’s poets. If you don’t believe the theory that Americans are getting dumber with every generation, compare the poetry of say Alfred Lord Tennyson with any rapper today, and you will see what I mean. For instance, in one of Tennyson’s most famous poems, “In Memoriam” he wrote:

“Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.”

Great stuff! That sends chills down my back. Ok, compare that to this little gem:

“#@&#^$* in da house (*&#($# an my’brofa is wack!

Ok ok ok, I made up that last song. But the lyrics are usually so yucky, I wouldn’t want to try and google search for any. Especially because I am writing this at work and I don’t want to try and explain to the Computer Services people why the Lyrics to “My Humps”, “I’m in Love (with a Strippa)”, or “Baby Got Back” are in my search history. There might be a few of you out there who wonder how I even know the titles to some of these songs. All I can say is late night talk radio can be very educational. Believe me when I say it, the lyrics to those songs are about as high-browed as the titles lead you to believe.

Well, enough ranting for today. I’m going to go home soon and touch all my books before I head to bed. I need a hit, man. I’m going through withdrawals. I need to go score me some books!

Hm. And I wonder why I will never be cool. Oh, well.

finis