July 23, 2024

I have found my new series of blogs. A little background: Our basement has been a bit of a disaster area for years, way too much pieces of old (and relatively big) furniture, tons of old household crap, dozens of old electronics, and boxes and boxes of books. If I had my way, no books would ever be boxed, but we long ago maxed out the shelving space in our house. Recently I found a recycling center that would take my electronics, which has allowed me to dig in more to the rest of the stuff in the basement, including these boxes of books.

I really would like to assess those boxes, see what surprises might be there, remind myself of other times (sometimes because of the book's contents, but often because of my association with the books). So, as I do that, I will present this series of "What's In The Box," (cue applicable Boo Radleys' song) sharing openly the surprises and memories each box provides. Some of these boxes have been packed up for well over a decade, so there will be lots of surprises. Most of those will have to wait, as those boxes generally have ended up behind other boxes.*

So, let's look inside box #1, a ceiling fan box, which means its contents couldn't have been put in there much more than 5 or 6 years ago, which is when we replaced the ceiling fan in Lincoln's bedroom, providing me a long box for storage. It is not particularly an ideal box for such storage usage. I can already confess that this series will disappoint my parents in Heaven, Dad for the shitty job packing, Mom for the lack of thought in cataloging and organizing. Sorry, loving parents.

I found 63 books in Box #1, and, boy, do we have a good one for which to start, as eclectic as the reading tastes in this household. Recognize that this box probably came from a random expunging of books 5 or so years ago to generally create space in any number of spots in the living area of the house. That's why I am not surprised to find 18 cheap mysteries, my favorite mind-munchie. The most famous one, one of the first pressings of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (in hindsight a complete piece of crap, if I may say so). The second most famous one, James Patterson's "Along Came A Spider" (decent book, although Patterson has become a little tedious over the years). Almost all the rest of these mysteries are forgettable. I did bring two upstairs to re-read, as I am nearing the end of the Donna Tartt book I am reading and have nothing ready to read. The two I pick, Lisa Jackson's "Lost Souls" and James Swain's "Midnight Rambler," are chosen for no other reason than that they are in decent shape.

One notable outlier among the mysteries: Lawrence Block's "The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams." My mother loved Lawrence Block and bought me this book to turn me onto Block, knowing the baseball angle (and Ted Williams, my father's favorite player, someone he snuck away during grad school to go watch at Fenway Park) would help. I did enjoy the book and forgot about it. After Mom passed away, I took her small collection of Block books and have since read them all. "The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams" must join the other Block books in our fireplace room.

Beyond the mysteries, I discovered 16 other pieces of fiction. These range all over the place. Two are by Australian writer, Patrick White, which means they somehow were never stored with the dozens and dozens of other Australian books I have since doing an independent study on Australian Literature for Dr. Al Wertheim at Indiana University in 1987. They (because books are living creatures like all of us) could have commiserated their cruel fate with the copy of William Dean Howell's "A Modern Instance," another book from the IU graduate days, with a forward by Dr. David Nordloh, my dissertation director. They clearly have been hanging out with my beat-up copy of "Arrowsmith," by Sinclair Lewis, and my first copy of Stephen Crane's "Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets" (the copy used for my dissertation, sadly long replaced in the "permanent collection," shall we say, by a lovely "cultural edition" with supplemental essays).

One of the bigger surprises among the novels: Michael Collins' "The Insurrectionists." Collins was on the faculty at Southwestern Michigan College when I started in 2011. He was a pretty hot-shot author, who I had to admit I had never heard of. I bought "The Insurrectionists" as a way to get to know him and his work better; he left SMC within months of my beginning and so I never purchased another one.

A lesser surprise: why do I have a paperback copy of Tolkien's "The Two Towers," especially since we have two beautiful hard-bound sets. Then I look at it more closely and see it is tied into the movies. Ah, this one was Lincoln's, who for a few years there, couldn't get enough of the movies. Needless to say, it can stay in the box.

One other novel I almost brought back upstairs, but at the last second put back in the box: William Browning Spencer's "Résumé With Monsters," a horror story hearkening to H.P. Lovecraft. I seem to remember liking the book, but, wow, that must go back to my Bloomington days, when my friend Joe was all into Lovecraft. I kind of followed along cautiously. Lovecraft is some weird stuff.

If we are doing the math, we are thinking, "wow, half of the books in the dude's box are non-fiction. This has to be interesting." Well, maybe not. Two points: if it is a good non-fiction book, it is unlikely to go into storage; and, I, especially within the family, have always had a weakness for light-hearted non-fiction, baseball-related books, and true crime.

So, a chunk of the non-fiction are these kinds of gimmick books. The box provides only two of the true crimes: "Adams vs. Texas," Randall Adams' account of his wrongful arrest captured so poignantly in the 1988 film, "The Thin Blue Line," a movie that mesmerized Pix and me. The other is John Douglas' "The Cases That Haunt Us." Should it have come upstairs to join a couple of other Douglas books in my true crime library in the computer room? Nah. I love Douglas, but talk about someone riding his reputation through some of these books.

Meanwhile, three pretty thin baseball books were in there, but none meriting a return trip to the majors upstairs. Mind you, these are the kinds of books that rely heavily on the gimmick, and not as much on the quality of the delivery. "It's Your Call: Baseball's Oddest Plays" really can't demand space alongside of Roger Kahn's "The Boys of Summer" (cue great Don Henley song) or Roger Angell's "Late Innings."

Similarly, fun, quick (as in one sitting) reads like "The Disheveled Dictionary: A Curious Caper Through Our Sumptous Lexicon," "Saving Face: How to Lie, Fake and Maneuver Your Way Out Of Life's Most Awkward Situations," and "The Official Hugs Book" can't take up prime real estate in the household. Nor can the couple of books on parenting. Lincoln is 25, way past the advice (that was never helpful anyway) in "The Little Boy Book: A Guide To The First Eight Years."

However, a couple of books about dogs can easily return to the house (we even have space on the tiny shelf dedicated to dog books). One after all is a pocket-sized "The New Yorker Book Of Dog Cartoons." How did I ever abuse that book by boxing it? And somewhere I know we have a full-sized book of New Yorker dogs and cats cartoons. Can't wait to beg its forgiveness as I bring it back upstairs.

One other book to note, a collection of recipes from the Livonia LInC. This was a spiral-bound book put out by colleagues from Davenport University (who, in some cases, dated back to the Detroit College of Business of the early 2000s) that provided recipes by the Library and Information Commons' staff. It actually took me a minute to remember what LInC stood for (first thinking it had been a gift to my Lincoln??). Reading through it brought back any number of names of colleagues. Lots of nice memories, especially since the book was made for 2010-2011, which means I must have got it within a few months, weeks or days of my departure from Davenport in April 2010. Just as ironic is that the Livonia LInC, hell, the Livonia campus of Davenport University, would not exist within a half decade of that publication. I am thinking that this is the rarest book in the box. Sorry, first edition "The Da Vinci Code."

*A note: in this series, I do not plan to provide full bibliographic information for each book referenced, often I won't even provide the author's name. I also do not have an underlining feature for my blog, so all book titles will be put in quotation marks, and I will save bold-face and italics for names of other publications. Hey, it's my party and I'll do what I want to.

Full series here.