This is my first post, obviously. From here, I expect to move forward with details of my interactions with various books over the years. I don’t plan to critique the books, or even to provide much of a synopsis (if any) of the titles that I list on this blog. Rather, I intend to explain my experiences in discovering these books, in detailing the ways that they have intersected and, often, influenced my choices and the directions that I’ve taken. I am a lifelong bookseller, currently employed as a distribution manager and book buyer for a large independent bookstore in the United States. I have been blessed with thousands more recommendations than I could actually read in several lifetimes.
Because I probably know a lot more about books than I do about what they contain, I think fate plays a big role in the books that we end up reading – the books that end up changing our lives. For example, had I read “Atlas Shrugged” when I was 17, instead of “On The Road”, my life would probably have turned out very different – perhaps the objectivism of Ayn Rand would’ve enslaved my soul instead of Kerouac’s bebop literature unleashing it like a mad Charlie Parker horn solo. Who knows?
What I do know is that happenstance has a way of seeming premeditated sometimes. You took a left at the light and were hit head on by a police car that was trying to beat the red – or you decided to walk instead and met the love of your life while you were both standing at the intersection, watching the paramedics try to revive an unlucky stranger that just got hit by the same police car that would’ve had it in for you. What we choose to read is often directed by circumstance. The favorite book of some people that I know is “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse – a tiny book that could easily fit in a back pocket or a purse…something to read on an airplane…something to read while waiting at the DMV…you know, a small book that you can carry easily and finish quickly. For those of my friends that regard it as their favorite book, a book that changed their life, this is how they picked it to read…before knowing anything about what was inside, before knowing anything about the ways that it was going to change their life. In this, I hope to relate my experiences with books – how they chose me, how I came to choose them.
