Books, Their Owners, and Book Elitism

Today, my local library hosted its annual book sale. This was my second year attending, and like last year, I really piled up on the $1.00 books. I left, loaded down with 18 books, some bursting out of my canvas bag, some stacked in my arms.

What also transpired at the book sale was a sly observation of the humans attached to the books. People at the book sale were checking each other out: the size of their book stacks, and their titles, and what that might reveal about their inner character. There was a grizzled gray haired guy with a book stack that extended from his waist to his forehead with obscure titles. There was the Asian engineer with such varied titles from Exercises for the Golfer, to a textbook on Calculus.

There was also my cousin, Alicia, newly minted Stanford Grad, who had a select 6 books in her arms that were meant for the informed literati. She explained that she had already read all of the popular books on offer.

My coworker, Qian, was also in attendance. For 20 minutes I watched her wander the piles, and not pick up a single book. Maybe she felt self-conscious about her taste in reading. I wasn't being very helpful. I showed her my growing stack of self-help and chick lit books so that she wouldn't feel too embarrassed by her reading choices. I guess she might feel self-conscious somehow. I cannot understand why, what with my shallow and unintellectual book choices.

Here are the books that I bought.

1. Age if Innocence, by Edith Wharton
2. Bergdorf Blondes, by Plum Sykes
3. Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work, by Jack Canfield et al.
4. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
5. The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Stories, by Henry James
6. Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
7. The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank
8. Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby
9. Le Divorce, by Diane Johnson
10. The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx
11. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
12. Mars and Venus Together Forever, by John Gray, Ph.D.
13. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
14. Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
15. Cave in the Snow, by Vicki Mackenzie
16. The Best American Travel Writing 2006, edited by Tim Cahill
17. Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
18. Sharks & Rays, edited by Leighton Taylor

As noted previously, some shallow and unintellectual books, but others that are more challenging. There are some "chick lit" selections (Bergdorf Blondes, Le Divorce), as well as a share of sappy self help (Chicken Soup, Mars and Venus). Finally, there are the classics that I feel I should read (Age if Innocence, The Turn of the Screw). My cousin, Alicia, drily observed that a lot of my book selections were books with movie adaptations (Cold Mountain, The Shipping News). I can't tell if she was being condescending or not. Well, hey, I never pretended to be an intellectual.

I will post my progress on these books in the near future.