Where Wisdom is Found

Thus commencing weekly tales from the depths of the Booksmith: the Used Book Cellar.

Last week, your faithful used book buyers acquired several titles (as per usual), but the following particularly peculiar finds illustrate the many forms in which wisdom passes our desk.

Dancing with Dragons; Invoke their Ageless Wisdom and Power - for devotees of House Targaryen, or simply those with fire in their bellies, I present to you D. J. Conway's TIMELESS, CLASSIC work of dragon-wisdom. Available now for $8 is a singular volume containing all kinds of stories, rituals and tips on harnessing the dragon energy within you. But that's enough from me, allow the jacket copy to speak for itself: "Call on dragons to brighten your day-to-day life and to solve problems that require timeless wisdom." A great gift for the dragon fanatic in your life, or a charming addition to the library of any academic acquiring the vast wisdom of our realm.

On to Exhibit 2, a young customer (with the assistance of her mother) has outgrown her Dr. Seuss collection and we have benefited. An entire library of Seuss: Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, even the rarer I Wish That I Had Duck Feet can all be found in the UBC now, in great condition, priced at $5 each. The first stop of wisdom for most beings of this world, Dr. Seuss can never be underestimated. Ten Apples Up On Top, a CLASSIC, EPIC tale of perseverance and life-balance should never be forgotten. When any of us feels we have too many apples on top, and that "Our apples all/are going to drop," it serves well to remember that with the help of friends we can have "Ten apples/on us all!/What fun!/We will not/let them fall."

Finally, the UBC has also recently acquired 11 volumes of Will Durant's EPIC, EXHAUSTIVE Story of Civilization, a series of thousand-page (each!) tomes that cover the gamut of world history and culture in stunning hardcovers complete with bold dust jackets. Each volume is priced at $10.50. For all the wisdom contained herein, that's quite the bargain. Randomly opening to page 414 in Volume 1 ('Our Oriental Heritage,') Durant offers a valuable insight on the distinction between the foundations of Hinduism and Christianity: "It is an abstruse heaven, however, that Yajnavalkya [of The Upanishads] promises the devotee, for in it there will be no individual consciousness, there will only be absorption into Being, the reunion of the temporarily separated part with the whole. [...] Such a theory of life and death will not please Western man, whose religion is permeated with individualism as are his political and economic institutions."

No matter your age or interest, the UBC can satisfy the endless quest for wisdom, and on a budget, too. And if you need to make room for all this wisdom in your collection, we buy used books Wednesday through Saturday, 10 A.M. - 4 P.M. E-mail us at ubc@brooklinebooksmith.com for more.