Spiritual truth, like good nuggets of psychedelic music, was at the margins, hidden in used bookstores and record shops. – Peter Bebergal, Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood

Winding down from a rather busy summer. I was not pleased with the cool temps and all of the rain. I feel cheated. Cheated out of hot, sunny days and muggy evenings. Those nights where the only comfort I can find is sitting on my front porch with a tall glass of ice water and reading a good novel. With all the rain the mosquitos discovered the porch. “HA! There you are!” I could just hear them.

I didn’t even start the ‘great summer read’. You know, those thick hard cover novels. In fact, I started books only to cast them aside to pick up another. I made myself finish a few. My reading count for the year is low. Thirteen books! So sad. Twelve books I’ve started. Ugh!

I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m supposed to remember books I’ve read. As well as who wrote what book. What’s the great American novel? What is/are my favorite novels(s)? What do I recommend to help get someone back into reading. What are the books I have here in the store. Some days I can spit out titles and authors. And then there are days when I can’t even visualize the dust jacket of the asked for book. Ugh!

In spite of all or anything at all, owning a used bookstore is everything you can imagine and then some. I love it. All positive. Customers to all the books. Cleaning to sweeping. Covering torn dust jackets. Shelving. Walking the aisles to straighten them. Going through boxes as they enter the store. Talking with my book scouts and seeing what they brought in. Visiting homes to pick out titles. After sixteen years it is still exciting. Adventurous.

I’ve been taking a break from going through a box of vintage youth books. Sorting to those that are good to stay. Others to put outside for the sale. Setting aside those that need their dust jackets covered. Pricing and stacking for a working pile. Fill my arms and head into the Big Yellow Room for shelving.

The glow of appreciation a book lover showed as he left a Book Row shop clutching a volume he had found at last after a seemingly endless and quixotic quest was seen somewhere practically every day on Book Row. It’s a glow unlike any other, and the radiance could at times make even grouchy booksellers worried about the rent feel better for delivering a bit of happiness in a cloudy world. – Marvin Mondlin & Roy Meador, BOOK ROW: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade.