On the look and smell of old-fashioned print books

The New York Times reports that sales of "old-fashioned print books" are up for the third year in a row, based on figures from the Association of American Publishers. And indie bookstores are doing well, reversing a decline sparked by big box bookstores, Amazon and e-books.

Good news for book lovers. Are the books being read and understood? No, if the American electorate is any indication.

But I am a book lover. At this point in my life, I am trying to shed books with little success. I occasionally clean up the shelves and take a few boxes of books to the library store. But I find a need to read a certain book that I can't get at the library and I end up buying it. My latest purchase was "Sons and Lovers," the 1913 novel by D.H. Lawrence. When a friend and one-time indie bookstore owner saw the book in my car, he picked it up and said, "This is how I learned about sex." I replied that I hadn't reached that part yet. Paul Morel and his potential sweetheart Miriam are still in the platonic stage.

I had a selfish motive for reading "Sons and Lovers." I discovered it was filled with wonderful details about a British coal-mining village of Eastwood before World War I. My grandfather lived and worked in a British coal-mining village before and during the early years of the war. I portray a character like that in the novel I am working on. Also, I never read a Lawrence novel. How I could be an English major and not read Lawrence is a surprise to me. I knew more about his life in Taos than I did about his books.

"Sons and Lovers" is a good read. The prose is dense at times but it was 1913, the same era as Edith Wharton, William James and Upton Sinclair. I read "The Jungle" earlier in the year and it was slow going at times.  Lawrence's prose is better that some of his contemporaries. He had an eye for detail.

This edition of "Sons and Lovers" is a trade paperback published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics. It carries a scent but doesn't have that old-book smell.

But my 1921 copy of John Dos Passos' "Three Soldiers" does. It got it at an estate sale for $4 with the tag "library condition." Well used but not battered. From the Merced County Free Library. It still has the sleeve for the borrower's card and date stamps on the outside front cover. It smells like old paper. The pages are yellowing. But it's still readable, so that's what I'm doing. The novel concerns the journey made by three young men as they volunteer for service in World War I. Written after the war by veteran Dos Passos, the slang and expressions and description are of that time and are quite something. I can read about old times and smell them all at the same time. Not possible with an e-book.

Not sure what I will do with my books (old and new) after I'm finished with them and my research. I would say leave them to my adult children but they look upon their parents' accumulated goods as if it were radioactive waste. They're both big readers but my literary passions are not theirs.

It's good news to see that print books are back. Is it a trend or a passing fancy? Who knows. My habits are not likely to change. I will still get suckered into used book sales and garage sales and will just have to have that 1930 edition of "Death Comes for the Archbishop." I found that book at the annual Delta Kappa Gamma used book sale in Cheyenne. Only 50 cents. Who could pass that up?