Own Books You Haven’t Read
While looking through my books today I picked up a musty volume titled “Deep Delta Country.” I purchased it in a used bookshop in New Orleans a few years ago and have not read it. Inside, I discovered an old, linen postcard of the Blue Room at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. The card appears to have been made in the 1940s, based on scant research. Its colors are still vivid, maybe because it has been preserved inside this book, unhandled and away from sunlight.
The book is in rough shape, but it is full of tales of people who once settled and thrived in the watery world south of New Orleans.
I believe in the value of possessing shelves full of books I have not read. When you find an inexpensive gem in a bookshop, one that interests you and that you may never see again, why not take it home if you have the shelf space? For one thing, most of my books are nonfiction. They serve as handy references for topics I like to write about.
I am especially appreciative of small-press, regional histories, which are invaluable to the preservation of stories, facts and folklore that might otherwise fade away. I consult my collection often. I try to buy every book with Tulane University geographer Richard Campanella’s name on it. No one researches, documents and analyses New Orleans as clearly and thoroughly as him – and his work is highly readable.
Every time I see Deep Delta Country molding on a shelf with other books unread by me, I know I have a savings account for rainy days, sleepless nights, and a future when days, perhaps, will be less filled with mundane tasks – more open to important things of life, like books I haven’t read.
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.