Collected Stories
It was wonderful to reread Donald Barthelme’s story “Chablis” in the magazine’s archive issue (Fiction, August 19th). In 1988, when I was in medical school, in Houston, I rented a garage apartment behind a house that turned out to be occupied by Barthelme and his family. The morning after I moved in, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Don standing in front of me, holding a heavy wooden chair over his head. He said that the chair was for me. The next morning, there was another knock. Don was standing there holding a wicker chair over his head. This is going to be a great place to live, I thought. His wife, Marion, had decided that this one was the right one to give me, not the wooden one. “Apparently,” he told me, “my embarrassment was not part of that decision.” I wish I remembered everything he said to me. He spoke as eloquently and as humorously as he wrote. Once, when he told me that he and Marion were going to Europe for a couple of weeks, I asked if they were bringing Kate, their then seven-year-old daughter, who I’ve always assumed was the inspiration for the child in “Chablis.” “Of course,” he replied. “I couldn’t very well freeze her and thaw her out when I return.” Then he looked past me for a moment and added, “Though the thought has crossed my mind.”
Ron Fisher
Houston, Texas
Shelf Life
Louis Menand’s recent essay discusses some of the problems that independent bookstores have confronted since the Internet all but took over the business (Books, August 19th). But, as Menand readily admits, the survey books he uses to illustrate his thesis do little to advance our understanding of the economic realities of the modern book trade. He talks about ways that independent bookstores can attract customers with curated selections, author readings, and community outreach. But, as someone who has sold used and rare books for over forty years, I have found that activities like these barely bring in enough money to feed the cat. Why do many independent bookstores still exist? They’re selling a good proportion of their books over the Internet.
Gary Goodman
Stillwater, Minn.
While reading Menand’s piece, I was reminded of John Milton’s description of books as “not absolutely dead things.” Writing to the British Parliament in 1644, Milton argued that books should not be treated as another ware that the government can regulate, like broadcloth or wool. On the contrary, he wrote, a “good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life.” This idea, now memorialized on the wall of the New York Public Library’s main reading room, helps to explain the persistent appeal of books and the brick-and-mortar shops that sell them. Milton’s words also serve as a prescient argument against more recent efforts in America to limit what books are available in bookstores and libraries. Browsing through shelves with a wide range of books is both a reliable pleasure and a hallmark of a free nation.
Stephen B. Dobranski
Atlanta, Ga.
Desperate Measures
I read Naaman Zhou’s piece on a newspaper bandit in Yorkville with interest (The Talk of the Town, August 19th). Have the victims considered putting a tiny tracker inside a Sunday Times? The thief might well notice a door camera, but a tracker would be hard to spot immediately inside such a hefty bundle, with its blue plastic sleeve.
Ruth Scodel
Sacramento, Calif.
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