Things have been ramping up at the shop recently. Whoever rolled the boulder over the cave entrance holding Book Collections recently rolled it back because we are swamped with new arrivals. Three major collections have come in recently, all of them made of the very weird and smart material you love, and we’re furiously cataloguing them to get the titles in your inboxes.
It feels good to get out of the shop and visit collections. We head to little forested areas in the middle of the city to pick up boxes of neatly packed Folio Society books (still to be catalogued). We drive to edgy rural areas to purchase vintage sci-fi paperbacks, a dog named “Jupiter” trotting down the long laneway to meet us. The books belong to the dog’s owner. We are disappointed; it would be much cooler if they belonged to the dog. We visit an east London home to buy a collection of fine literature with lovely bindings from a family overwhelmed with an estate. Piles of hoarder’s material line the walls. We slink in. We find the gilt. We box it and slink out of the house (consensually, of course).
If it wasn’t an oppressively hot summer we’d be in some sort of bookseller Catwoman costume: pearls, monocles, dapper shoes, and a sexy glint in our eye. Sadly, the Louisiana heat of the Thames Valley doesn’t allow this. Maybe winter. Maybe this winter we can up our fashion game. We can slug into a house doning snowshoes, fake beaver hats, parkas, and ski-doo goggles, only to divest it all in the entryway like a boss, revealing a sleek, tweed ensemble complete with fob watches, moody pocket squares, and leather gloves.
“You may rest now,” we’d announce. “The booksellers are here.”
Perhaps this fantasy is just for us. When so much material comes through the door it is hard not to be seduced by reveries of a meta-life filled with intrigue and Romance. Maybe this is our brain’s way of dealing with the factual, bibliographical data swimming on our desks. As we parse a collection’s details, another section of our minds concoct an alternative, out-world Self who snowmobiles around Southwestern Ontario purchasing books, breaking hearts, and communicating only in riddles. Does the Protestant tradition of our region allow such heresy to happen? Would we be arrested? Would we become folk heroes? Would we simply die?
We guess only time will tell.
With love,
Jason and Vanessa
