Books

Yesterday, I drove down to Lewisburg to do some shopping. I had some library books to return and was hoping to find something else to read. I had been on a contemporary author reading spree and was ready to read something classic. I didn't have anything particular in mind, so started scanning the shelves for old-looking dust jackets or bindings that gave away the fact that the book contained something classic. I couldn't seem to find any, so decided to check for the first author that came to mind: Austen. Nothing. What about James Joyce? Nothing. Panic started to set in as Zivah and I zig-zagged back and forth down the long aisle. Thomas Hardy. Nabokov. Nothing. Only a few months ago, I read an aging copy of George Eliot's Adam Bede. It was gone. Had the people of Marshall County lost so much interest in the classics that the librarians cleared their shelves of great literature to make room for excessive amounts of John Grisham and  Belva Plain works?

I headed toward the librarian's desk, wondering if I needed to start budgeting for books so that my kids wouldn't grow up not knowing who Mark Twain was. "Do you have a classic literature section?" I asked the lady. "You mean authors like Jane Austen and Agatha Christie? Right over here." She led the way to section 813 as I nearly sank to the floor with relief.

Of course, now my mind and emotions are spinning. While on one hand, I'm thankful that I don't have to weed through so much drivel to find a really good book, I'm pretty sure people will be less likely to read a classic on impulse. What constitutes a classic, anyway? And that section looks pathetically small... (Oh, Nashville Public Library, how I miss you.)