I don’t know what others do when they’re visiting a town or city not their own, although tourist trap brochures give us all an idea, and it’s not pretty.
When I’m in a new city I’m looking for museums, cool parks, large bodies of water to wander around, cultural and historical locations, thrift stores, unique libraries, and bookstores. I’m looking for interesting people to run into, interesting places to visit. I’m looking for random adventure on no budget.
Two weeks ago while out of town for a poetry reading in southern Indiana, my girlfriend Jess and I had some free hours to explore in Bloomington, and it was overcast and drizzly, so we googled thrift stores. They had the usual Salvation Army, Goodwill and Humane Society Restore, but we chose to visit a place called Opportunity House first. It was closest.
When we got there, I immediately saw a little free library across the street. Whenever I see one, and I have a copy of one of my books handy, I leave a book. I always hope whomever needs it might stumble upon it. At this particular little free library there was a copy of Studs Terkel’s ‘Work.’ That book contains hundreds of interviews he did with Americans, specifically asking about their work lives. I’ve heard some of the taped interviews over the years, but never read the book, so this time I traded the little free library a copy of $100-A-Week Motel, my first novel, for that Terkel book that I was happy to find. That good find turned out to be an omen of finds to come.
The Opportunity House is a pretty basic looking thrift shop. You have to park in the back and walk around the front entrance. I went straight to the books just like I always do. A thrift store book section is usually a quick 30 minute scan through the average everyday books average everyday people discard, like Stephen King, John Grisham, lots of romance stuff, lots of out of date self help and diet books, and lots of out of date religious books. But this thrift store had books in foreign languages and other weird and interesting things, so I started paying closer attention.
I dug through for about 30 minutes or an hour, and it’s well documented that I live in a camper now and have little to no room for more books, or more anything. But I’ll never be able to resist a cheap book I want to read. Ever. After an hour I had three or four books that I just had to buy. One says it’s about a man that decided to transition into a deer and divided the community. Have to read that one eventually.
Jess had wandered off to look at clothes and other things, and circled back to the books. “You know books are a buck a bag, right?” she said, pointing out a crude written poster that did indeed say books were $1 a bag. I’d passed on a lot of good books by then, adding up price tags of the few I’d selected I was already up to $7 or $8 that I didn’t have in my travel budget. You can imagine my reaction. I was like a hungry kid on a free $100 shopping spree in a candy store.
Jess, an avid bibliophile herself, she and I began to dig through bookshelves in earnest. That’s when we found the Brautigan.
Richard Brautigan was a west coast poet and writer that wrote several books but none of them are like most any other books. He wrote stories in a prose style unlike anyone else I’ve ever found, and his books have found a cult following amongst underground writers. I discovered his most famous novel, “Trout Fishing in America” several years ago, and have read reprints and kindle versions of most of his published work. He’s become one of my favorite writers, and most certainly an early influence on how I write novels.
There, sitting on a bookshelf at this random thrift store in Bloomington was a second printing copy of Brautigan’s novella “Watermelon Sugar.” Holy shit. I couldn’t believe it. Friends have pointed out since that the copy is worth around $50 on eBay and other sites, but it’s close to priceless to me right now. It’s only the second time in my life I’ve found a rare Brautigan in the wild. And the other time was at John King book warehouse in Detroit, one of the biggest bookstores jn the world. They had one copy of Brautigan once when I visited.
We both continued to dig through books, and after about three hours we voted unanimously for a smoke break. We ended up with 26 books stuffed in a brown paper grocery bag, all for $1.
Later we dropped in on a giant Goodwill where I decided I didn’t need a 3rd copy of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five even if it was only 99 cents. See. I have discipline with books one out of five chances these days.
We hit up a big Humane Society Restore thrift store, and there was a lot of cool art project idea stuff, but no books, so I didn’t buy anything except a little adventure and a few small daydreams. It didn’t cost me but an hour of my time.
Even later we found Morgenstern’s Bookstore and coffee shop. We found it by accident. It’s right by the Restore place. Morgenstern’s it turns out, is the largest independent bookstore in Indiana, but they don’t brag about it in person. I had to visit their website later to find out. They’re in a big understated light brick building, and you know that judge a book by its cover cliche? Definitely don’t judge a bookstore or a good thrifting honey spot by the building it’s housed in.
When you walk in Morgenstern’s, goddamn, there’s a lot of books, and a big, full service coffee shop. Jess and I got coffee for me and Chai for her, and we traded bites of a cookie and a muffin, then sipped our beverages while swimming in a large lake of literature, and friend, that’s my favorite kind of swimming. I’ve been to more bookstores than beaches, and I see a lot of beaches.
We didn’t buy any books, but we spent a joyful 90 minutes pinballing and oohing and awwwing around the Hoosier bibliophile Mecca, and I stopped and talked to an employee about getting my books into their store, and was pointed down the online portal where I found out that thing about being the biggest, baddest indie bookstore in Indiana.
Morganstern’s will be a store I’ll visit again anytime I’m in the area. Their coffee shop chalkboard says they host poetry readings and writer’s groups. Sounds like our people.
The Brautigan find was the find of the day for me. That’ll be a hard one to top for a long while probably.
In the end we ended the day with the best book haul I’ve ever seen for $1, an average of 4.2 cents per book. No doubt the best dollar bill I’ve ever seen spent.
As we laid out our spoils we both discovered we’d each selected a copy of Beowulf, a hilarious wave length thing. We also had a copy of Pudd’nhead Wilson by Twain, several modern fiction books from African American award winners like Ghetto Cowboy that was turned into a movie about African American cowboys living in urban areas, and Fire in the Streets a fictional tale of a girl too young to join the Black Panthers in Philadelphia during the time when the government firebombed them. Jess scored a great copy of Words Will Break Cement about the origins of Pussy Riot. She also picked a Mad Libs book. I picked a Calvin & Hobbes collection. We got classics and poetry collections, artist memoirs and more.
What a find. What a day. True book lovers will understand, and this book lover and working class writer will never forget the best $1 bag of books I’ve ever found.
A Denton for a Terkel
Jess’ photo of me at the little free library
The Brautigan
Saw this short fella at the Restore. I’ll never trust a man with that mustache.
Photo opportunity at Morgenstern’s
All these books for one American dollar
What a haul! Way to score, Book Hunter! You, kind wordsmith, are swimming in words, surrounded by imagination, deep into the glory of the printed page. All for a buck! That’s your golden ticket! Tony Toledo