One's Own Authors
Part of the bookstore business for me is browsing the house for more books to sell. I've found some treasures in my parents' collection, mostly antiquities. Among my own, I came across tonight two early (1960s) paperbacks of Anne Sexton's poetry, acquired from the Pike Library booksale in the last year or three, possibly for free (worth about $15 apiece). The cover illustration of one has silhouettes of a woman holding a child's hand, and the name "Raskin" as a signature.
Ellen Raskin is one of my favorite authors from childhood. She wrote a few books, wrote and illustrated more, and apparently, according to one article I found online, did covers for about 1000 books. She died in 1984. I found that out when I worked in the children's room of the Rochester Public Library in the late 1980s and looked her up in a reference book.
I was so sad to find that out, because she was young and wonderful and I wanted more to read, and to write her to tell her how much I liked her books.
Where my mind wandered to is that she is one of "my" authors: someone whose work I discovered for myself, as a child gulping down library books. Reading is an intimate, personal experience; finding one's own authors is, too. I have many who are very personal to me, many of whom I remember meeting - Ursula Le Guin I met in the basement of the elementary school, when our reading class had its weekly viewing of a PBS show (the name of which momentarily escapes me) where a man would describe a book, read some of it, and draw pictures illustrating a scene. One week, the only one I remember, the book was _A wizard of Earthsea_, and my lifelong devotion to Le Guin began when I read the book. But Raskin, I don't recall; I suppose I picked up one of her books, which had her elegant, witty, distinctive artwork on the cover, and read, probably, _The mysterious disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)_, which was also full of distinctively witty, elegant wordplay and memorable people and surprising situations. Oh, she was wonderful. _The tattooed potato and other clues_, full of art, and grief, music, truth and disguise, the importance of identity, and the need forgiveness and generosity; _Figgs and Phantoms_, about books and family, love and letting go and being yourself (yes, an ongoing theme, always important to books for children and young adults). I'm sad again, knowing that that mind is no longer working.
It surprises me at times that my private passion for some author is shared by others. The new biography of Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree, Jr. is being featured at my book distributors, for instance, yet, except among friends online or at Wiscon, I hardly meet anyone who seems to have heard of her. The older, wonderful biography of Georgette Heyer is back in print (at least in the UK, though I have it in the store). The bestseller lists are frequently full of good books by good writers, though, which means that others are buying and reading those books, and reacting intensely, most like, as oneself to the contents. How hard it is to share that with someone, though. When a book has made me cry or profoundly shaken me or made me rethink my existence, I'm shy of asking someone else who's read it about that aspect of reading. Reading is so, so private. Does it take being a bit of an exhibitionist to be a bookseller, to try to tell people why this or that book is one they should read?
Ellen Raskin is one of my favorite authors from childhood. She wrote a few books, wrote and illustrated more, and apparently, according to one article I found online, did covers for about 1000 books. She died in 1984. I found that out when I worked in the children's room of the Rochester Public Library in the late 1980s and looked her up in a reference book.
I was so sad to find that out, because she was young and wonderful and I wanted more to read, and to write her to tell her how much I liked her books.
Where my mind wandered to is that she is one of "my" authors: someone whose work I discovered for myself, as a child gulping down library books. Reading is an intimate, personal experience; finding one's own authors is, too. I have many who are very personal to me, many of whom I remember meeting - Ursula Le Guin I met in the basement of the elementary school, when our reading class had its weekly viewing of a PBS show (the name of which momentarily escapes me) where a man would describe a book, read some of it, and draw pictures illustrating a scene. One week, the only one I remember, the book was _A wizard of Earthsea_, and my lifelong devotion to Le Guin began when I read the book. But Raskin, I don't recall; I suppose I picked up one of her books, which had her elegant, witty, distinctive artwork on the cover, and read, probably, _The mysterious disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)_, which was also full of distinctively witty, elegant wordplay and memorable people and surprising situations. Oh, she was wonderful. _The tattooed potato and other clues_, full of art, and grief, music, truth and disguise, the importance of identity, and the need forgiveness and generosity; _Figgs and Phantoms_, about books and family, love and letting go and being yourself (yes, an ongoing theme, always important to books for children and young adults). I'm sad again, knowing that that mind is no longer working.
It surprises me at times that my private passion for some author is shared by others. The new biography of Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree, Jr. is being featured at my book distributors, for instance, yet, except among friends online or at Wiscon, I hardly meet anyone who seems to have heard of her. The older, wonderful biography of Georgette Heyer is back in print (at least in the UK, though I have it in the store). The bestseller lists are frequently full of good books by good writers, though, which means that others are buying and reading those books, and reacting intensely, most like, as oneself to the contents. How hard it is to share that with someone, though. When a book has made me cry or profoundly shaken me or made me rethink my existence, I'm shy of asking someone else who's read it about that aspect of reading. Reading is so, so private. Does it take being a bit of an exhibitionist to be a bookseller, to try to tell people why this or that book is one they should read?