Reading A Book About Books Aloud to My Betters

Sometimes, one is volunteered without so much as notice. Just yesterday, I found myself up at six in the morning, dressing in the dark, trying not to wake my beloved -- though, in truth, a truck crashing into the bedroom couldn't quite do that unless dear A. decided for himself to get out of the way. I used my printed directions to find my way downtown, find the rather fabulous new hotel at which I was expected for breakfast, and then find myself seated on a dais. For once, my big mouth had not put me in this position. Or rather, if it did, it was only at second hand; because I am the resident "expert" at the bookstore on used books, and by way of my established reputation for being a ham. I was copied on an email by a very nice woman, organizing a panel discussion at a conference of college bookstores. In this email I learned that I was to be one of four featured speakers on the subject of increasing the sales of books other than textbooks. Having read of this for the first time, I consulted my boss. Meeting with a bewilderment equal to my own, I then consulted The Boss of Bosses, and learned I was, indeed, intended to talk, to "represent the bookstore."

I do not doubt for a minute that at some point well previous to the morning in question, I must have burbled, with my usual lack of reserve, how happy I would be to do anything that might help, in any small way, with the huge undertaking that was to be hosting such a conference here, in Seattle, with the bookstore where I work as the official representative of the local trade. I've heard and seen something of the enormous effort put forth in this undertaking by my betters and my coworkers. So far as I could see, everything came off, by the way, rather wonderfully well. All, I hasten to add, without so much as a finger lifted by me. The conference participants seemed, in my brief encounters with them, well pleased. In fact, before I rose to join the morning's first session on the last day of the conference, the organization's leaders, quite rightly, made a point of publicly recognizing the excellence of the efforts made by those among my employers who had worked so hard to make of things such a resounding success. I joined most sincerely in the applause. But then there was this business of my unexpected presence among all these executives, managers and the like. How to explain, let alone justify that? All I can think is, in the frantic hours of preparation for the conference, my name came up when Used Books did and, Used Books being something of a success story since it's introduction into the Trade Books Department a few short years ago, an understandable, if unnaturally leap of faith was made. Frankly, I would be hard pressed to imagine a less likely person to be set before such serious people of business, and at such an hour. Naturally, being as I've so often now admitted, so very easily flattered by the least notice being taken of me by my employers, I never thought of declining the invitation. Instead, I simply worried I'd make a dreadful mess of the thing.

I am not the least little bit businesslike. Oh, I work hard. I try very hard to be professional about my job. I am loyal. But I don't do well with numbers. I do not speak the language of business or management with any fluency at all, as any of my employers, past and present, and any who have worked for me when I've been a manager, could testify. Oh, I can talk, but seldom to the point. Perhaps the best assistant manger I was ever lucky enough to work with, used to tell the clerks after I'd finished yakking away at meetings, "He means you need to show up on time hereafter" or "He means you need finish what you start," or "He means you need stop talking so much at the cash register," that last always causing me exquisite embarrassment, as I was always by far the worst offender. That I am trusted with counting back change is a fact of which I am perhaps inordinately proud. I really ought never have been let near a budget, a schedule, or a business conference.

But however I came to be there Saturday morning, there I was. At eight in the morning, dressed better than I usually am at noon, let alone at such an hour of the day, I found myself seated next to actual business people, before a microphone, in a huge room full of other business people, including my own boss, our collective boss, and any number of company executives. In my somewhat slapdash preparation for this unlikely event, I had shaved carefully, worn black socks to an occasion other than a funeral for the first time in ages -- or so I hoped -- and packed a small bag with a small, old book, my phone in case I might need to call my partner to come and console me after, a short page of figures provided by my boss, and a small tackle-kit used for pricing books, in which were: a pencil, an eraser, a bottle of lighter fluid used for cleaning stickers off books, a few markers, a short strip of price tags, a box of yellow stickers used to mark the spines of books as used, a dollar bill, and my health insurance card. That last item, was a prop for the point in my presentation when I explained how one found and hired a used books buyer to work in a legitimate college bookstore. That was how the bookstore I work in now got me. (If you are in the market for an experienced used books buyer, trust me, there's nothing better. Just whisper, "401 K," and "dental coverage," to the first employee, over forty years of age, who looks likely, at any used bookstore. You'll have landed a candidate the minute you drop bait.)

My fellow panelists, professionals all, and managers the lot, each had not only prepared remarks, but powerpoint presentations. I came last. I had a shopping bag with props. As I listened to each of the speakers, my nervousness grew. To distract myself from unflattering comparison, I doodled on the pad of paper provided, the faces of bald men in the audience. I was pretending to make careful notes. (And by the way, when all was over, like an idiot I left those doodles behind. My apologies now to any who came after me to the dais and found themselves doodled.) Inevitably, my turn finally came.

I had decided, just that morning, to take a friend with me to the conference, the old book I mentioned. I thought I'd read it quietly at breakfast and so avoid conversation with legitimate conferees. Worked for awhile, until the dining area filled up. The book is Obiter Dicta: Second Series, by Augustine Birrell, published in 1887. The price marked in pencil, which for some reason I never erased, is one dollar. I bought it, years ago, from a bin of books put out to be got rid of at a used bookstore in Southern California. I didn't know Birrell from Adam, but the book was old and attractive, and one dollar. Now of course I am a collector, in a modest way, of Birrell's essays. All charming. I read again, from this book, Book Buying. Having read a bit of that with my eggs, I decided then and there to open my remarks from the dais by reading a bit of it aloud. Gave me courage, explained a little my own philosophy of books, got me a laugh or two I would not have earned otherwise. I introduced myself, and Birrell, showed the audience the book and told how I came to have it. I explained that, for Birell, William Gladstone was a contemporary figure, and that when the author quoted Gladstone's lament that there were always fewer bookstores than there had been in his youth, Gladstone might be speaking for all of us today. Here's the bit I read:

"Mr. Gladstone was, of course, referring to second-hand bookshops. Neither he nor any other sensible man puts himself out about new books. When a new book is published, read an old one, was the advice of a sound though surly critic. It is one of the boasts of letters to have glorified the term 'second-hand,' which other crafts have 'soiled to all ignoble use.' But why it has been able to do this is obvious. All the best books are necessarily second-hand. The writers of today need not grumble. Let them 'bide a wee.' If their books are worthy anything they too one day will be second-hand. If their books are not worth anything there are ancient trades still in full operation amongst us -- pastrycooks and trunk-makers -- who must have paper."

After that bit, I sailed on. I won't bother reproducing here my own comments on used books buying, except to say that my many props were brought out to show that, whatever pretensions to expertise we book dealers might assume to ourselves, all one needs to become a second-hand books dealer is: a box, and in that box, a pencil, an eraser, a bottle of lighter fluid used for cleaning the stickers off books, etc., etc.

Evidently, despite my unprofessional presentation, or perhaps because of the simple novelty of it, my audience was easily pleased. I will never quite understand the workings of business, conferences and the like. My bosses and a number of those in attendance at this conference were all surprisingly nice to me though, after I read a little something to them at that ungodly hour on a Saturday. Always trust writers better than one's self, that's my only contribution to the mysterious business of capitalism. Feel free to use that, the quote from Birrell's essay, I mean, if you likewise have the unexpected occasion for it.