Book Drop

Recently, I started giving away some of my books. Anybody that has known me for a long time should be shocked at this. I never get rid of books. I have crates of books everywhere, my apartment, my mom's house, dating back to pre-school. This is one of the main reasons it takes me at least a month to pack; at least 17 boxes of books follow me from apartment to apartment. I think starting to part with a few represents real growth.

In particular, I gave one book I really enjoyed Five-Finger Discount by Helene Stapinski to my friend, Dave. The book was her account of growing up in New Jersey; the seedy, crooked underbelly of the state, the rigged politics and the hard-scrabbling, anything-to-get-by relatives drooping from the branches of her family tree. Helene Stapinski is a great journalist; she really gives you a sense of the places and people she writes about, and her tone is a loving head-shake at the gang of the holy and the hooligans that surrounded her childhood. I just knew that the combination of humor, personal, and social history would intrigue Dave, so I handed it over to him. A week later, I mentioned the book again and he raved. He loved the book; he had started it almost immediately, and he was only a few pages from finishing.

I get a big charge out of being able to match the right person with the right book. I like it even better when the book is one that I enjoyed, too. Makes me feel like my good taste in literature is being validated. Best of all is when I give a book to one of my students, notorious non-readers to a one, and they get caught up in it. They either come back and ask if they can have the book a little bit longer, or will I keep it for them to read next time. Some of the more unscrupulous ones will steal the book outright. I don't even really mind that though. I can always buy a new one if I need it, and frankly, the idea that they want to keep reading a book badly enough to run off with it, well, it is one of the few times in this job that I feel I may be doing something right.