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.

Learning to Read...

Guess what? We’ve expanded our Learning to Read section. More than doubled the selection actually.

So, whether you are looking for some quick new reads, some familiar classics, or you know a young one who is learning to read, stop on by. I’ve also heard of parents using early readers to read to their kids at night because level 1, 2, and 3 books look longer. But, reading one of these beginning-to-read-books is actually shorter than the average picturebook. So, you do the math. :)

Our selection goes beyond Dick and Jane and “Cat sat on the rat. Rat went tap.” Blech! No wonder there are kids who aren’t interested in reading.

Let’s peruse some of our new arrivals:

Being sick is one thing. Being sick on the day of the class play…just terrible! (Iris and Walter: The School Play)

What good can come out of a cat who only chases kittens and lives in an old barrel? (Fire Cat)

Two cows dress up like chickens to crack the case! (Minnie and Moo: The Case of the Missing Jelly Donut)

You’ve never been to a slumber party you say? You can read about that, too. (Iris and Walter: The Sleepover and Pajama Party

Enjoy the excitement of a loose tooth all over again or for the first time. (Loose Tooth)

Remember that classic Wacky Wednesday? Yes, it’s still around as are many Dr. Seuss books (Wacky Wednesday was written under one of Seuss’s other pen names of Theo LeSeig).

Sounds and traditions of going to bed does not mean that a certain little boy is asleep. (Jack Prelutsky’s My Parents Think I’m Sleeping)?

The time has come, the time is now, the time has come to go read something now! (Sound familiar? Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now?)