Serendipity

     I've never been there before--at least not to 60th Street.  I've always wanted to go--for ice cream--but end up arriving quite often for the destiny.
     Last night I shared some correspondence with a friend over the nature of books as objects.  It started with a NYT article I found about the scent of old books--a faculty for which we share an affinity--and led to a discussion of books as objects and as living things--with a destiny all of their own.

     The man whose teaching position my mother took over just before I was born left a lot of his books in what was to become her office. I have some of them now, his Kittridge Shakespeares. His notes in red ink--actually elucidating at times--yellowing pages. My grandfather is a bibliophile--his father was a bookbinder, the name "Grolier Club" rolls off his tongue like "cookies" does off mine. He sent me to search his library once because he was sure he'd stuck a 100 dollar bill between the pages of a book. I never found it. I always liked the secrecy of books--what lies between the covers. Not just stories, but notes, dollar bills, a slip of paper with someone's phone number, a movie ticket stub, an inscription from giver to recipient (why did they give it away?), a receipt--clues to the things you can't see.  It feels like memory to me, something living--whether on one's mind or on a sheet of paper. And there is a very strong tension between memory and creation: the present is forever being shaped by the past and the past is continually being shaped by the present. Living--no wonder books have their own scent. Books have their own destiny. Just like we do. I studied bookbinding for a short time, feeling a connection to the past as I punched holes, and stretched leather, the actions of a great-granddaughter's hands--I love the paper, the thread, the curved needle, bone folder and awl, the different stitches to create different bindings.  This is another way to get to know their insides.
     There's a museum of bookbinding in Bath that sells old book covers that have lost their insides on the cheap. There's a poem written to a lover on one I bought, another has a binder's mark with an address on Chancery Lane, yet another, a bookplate that features a boxer dog, the owner's name, Spencer Eddy. Who knew their life would continue with me, or mine with theirs? 
     Today in the mail, I received a book much anticipated.  An overdue closing night gift for Tony Wendice, tennis champ.  Tony jokes that the novel I suggest he and Max (a crime writer) write together be called Murder on the Centre Court.  Centre Court Murder arrived today, British and published in 1951.  The packaging itself pleased me: "Printed Paper" someone had written on the cardboard box.  The familiar but long ago blue Royal Mail sticker pasted underneath.  Inside was another cardboard box, and inside that, a bubble wrapped book, covered in red binder's cloth, the Boots Booklovers Library sticker still partially attached to the cover.  Inside the book, was a note from the bookseller.  "Best Wishes," he wrote.  I looked down to the bottom of the note paper, the Bookseller's address printed in blue ink:  Unit 2 Maida Vale Business Centre, Maida Vale Road.  It's found its way back home, and it has lots of stories to tell.