I found an estate sale on Craigslist and, opening what will exciting chapter in our relationship, drug The Yankee to see it this morning. The ad was curious. After a few reads you couldn’t decide if it was a preview showing before an estate sale or the sale itself. They promised furniture though, which we do not need, and books, which we love. Thousands of books. And they were all going for a buck.

Having only gotten lost twice getting there — both being my fault — we discovered the sale in progress. There were a few furniture and rusted items for sale, but an entire garage and basement full of books. This personal library was even organized by genre, covering shelves, windowsills, a pool table and every other flat surface.

There was a small army of people pouring over the books. I picked up snippets of conversation about the likes of different customers, what used to be on the shelves and the constant search for boxes. A few women were picking up books by the handful and needed something to keep them all together. A kid was driving a remote controlled tank thing. There was some sort of camera or sensor on the vehicle, and he had the viewscreen, so he could drive from another room. I’m not sure if it was for sale.

I picked up all of the books now running across the top of the blog. First I found a book I’d normally not have any interest in, but I flipped through a few pages and thought “For a buck …”

Heart Songs was compiled at the turn of the 20th Century by Mitchell Chapple, supposedly taking the suggestions of 20,000 people for the music that defined them. This book, then, with its deep red cover and gilt, is a a piece of culture, a moment of history that captured the musical spirit of people from all over the country and wide swaths of the world. There are hymns, patriotic songs, childrens songs, operas, love tunes and more.

The foreword, written in Boston in 1909 as the book was published, is itself a thing of beauty:

Songs that have entertained thousands from childhood to the grave and have voiced the pleasure and pain, the love and longing, the despair and delight, the sorrow and resignation, and the consolation of the plain people — who found in these an utterance for emotions which they felt but could not express — came in by the thousands. The yellow sheets of music bear evidence of constant use; in times of war and peace, victory and defeat, good and evil fortune, these sweet strains have blended with the coarser thread of human life and offered to the joyful or saddened soul a suggestion of uplift, sympathy and hope.

The sheet music is occasionally interrupted by pictures of once famous singers like Jenny Lind and Adelina Patti.  The foreword also mentions, but unfortunately does not include, the many stories of how these songs had impacted the contributors. If they made this book today surely they would include some snippets of the better stories. That would add a lot, but there’s already an incredible wealth inside the cover. (And I’m not remotely a music historian.)

Then I found an 1897 Biblische Geschichte, a German bible. I can’t read it, beyond the cognates and the smallest set of words, but the pictures all make sense. Fortunately I know someone that can read it.

You're getting a book next week!

So I’ll send it to my Elisabeth. She can tell me if the stories inside are any different.

I also picked up a copy of R.A.C. Parker’s Europe 1919-1945, so we can learn all about the uneasy peace, turmoil and war from the British perspective. Parker was a Churchill fan, and Old Labour. This was a Delacorte volume, the seventh in a series of 35 meant to cover the history of mankind.

They couldn’t get that in 30 books?

I won’t collect the entire set, I promise.

Picked up Allen Drury’s A Senate Journal: 1943-1945. Drury was a military veteran turned United Press journalist. This book earned fame after he won a Pulitzer for fiction for Advise and Consent. After that, this journal was published. My copy, a first edition, made its way into the local library and ultimately, into my hands today.

I also found Rickenbacker: An Autobiography. Race car driver, pilot, ace, war hero, Medal of Honor winner, businessman and more, Eddie Rickenbacker is one of the great American icons of the first half of the 20th Century. He died quietly, almost forgotten in 1973. My history professor, the great W. David Lewis (1931-2007) of Auburn University, talked glowingly of Rickenbacker. He researched, for 15 years, his hero — including during the year or so I took his classes — and his book, came out in 2005.

Lewis was a character, full of life and passion for his varied interests. He was a renowned professor of the history of technology, loved cathedrals, pipe organs and, of course, aviation. I saw the autobiography, thought of Dr. Lewis and picked it up. On of these days I’ll pick up my professor’s book; I have to after reading these reviews.

I also met a man last December who worked for Rickenbacker at Eastern Air Lines. He told a story of having a real bad flight, being worked up about and then giving Rickenbacker, the president, an earful … only he didn’t realize who he was talking to. Rickenbacker nearly died in a plane crash in 1941 (dented skull, head injuries, shattered left elbow and crushed nerve, paralyzed left hand, broken ribs,  crushed hip socket, twice-broken pelvis, severed nerve in his left hip, broken knee and an eyeball expelled from the socket) and was adrift in the Pacific, dangerously close to the Japanese, for 24 days in 1942. Rickenbacker won his Medal of Honor for attacking, on his own, seven German planes, shooting down two in 1918. He also won seven Distinguished Service Crosses. Eddie Rickenbacker knew a few things about having a tough day (His book begins, “My life has been filled with adventures that brought me face to face with death.”) so he let the indiscretion slide.

I bought all of those for a buck each. Lugged them outside to meet the nice lady who was collecting the money. She said that the notes inside each book were just notes for her — where the book had been picked up, when and for how much. That six volume set of books I was also considering wasn’t really 60 dollars.

So I went back inside.

Canadian historian Edgar McInnis’ The War volumes will make a nice bookend to Churchill’s six volumes also in my library. McInnis, as you might notice above, breaks the story down by years. The first volume begins “With the outbreak of the war, many Americans set themselves deliberately not to believe most of what they read or were told about.” McInnis worked on this project during the war, and published all six installments in 1946. The sixth volume ends:

Success would lay the foundation for an era of human well-being unparalleled in history. But unless wisdom triumphed over the forces of greed and ambition and fear, the world might find that it had thrown away its last chance of salvation which it had bought at such a terrible price.

Imagine what all lies between those three sentences.

So that, in a rather large nutshell, is my 11 books for 11 bucks today.

Visited campus for a few minutes to meet with a colleague who needed some equipment. Wrote a letter while I was there. The Yankee and I then went to the bookstore. She was searching for something and I was just along for the ride. And then she took me to Ann Taylor. I surfed the Internet on my phone while she browsed.

We visited with friends as is our Friday afternoon custom, hanging out with Brian’s family and some delightful visiting in-laws, and Andre Natta. Most of us went out for Pie Day after that.

Clinkies!

Brought home leftovers, starting the weekend in style! How’s yours shaping up?