Thursday, May 04, 2017

"MAKE BOOKS THY COMRADES"

Books are disappearing not only in bookstores but libraries as well. That leaves us with fewer, if any, independent bookstores and libraries’ budgets, usually funded by local governments, are purchasing instead rows of computers. I fully expected Savannah’s imposing Bull St. Library to change the motto over its main entrance to now read “MAKE COMPUTERS THY COMRADES”. Somehow it just doesn’t make the same awe inspiring inscription as “Make Books Thy Comrades”.
Computers are certainly a wonder of modern convenience. Not only have they replaced what a former DeKalb neighbor called her suicide hotline, the Sears catalog’s 24 hour shopping, but can masterfully handle massive amounts of data efficiently. Beware though of the details of products for sale and the sources of computer data .The former is generally replaced with customer reviews easily manipulated by writing one without guarantee they are neither an employee of the maker nor competitor. The latter generally ignore footnotes and all references. One is left to merely hope it wasn’t gathered by those ‘researchers’ commonly found in Malls with their clipboards and questions. And don’t get me started on that most popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Athens is the home of the University of Georgia, first public university chartered (1785). (North Carolina takes issue with that claim as UNC was the first to actually admit university students (1789). Atlanta has its state rival (publicly funded) Georgia Tech (1885). Colleges and Universities provide captive customers for bookstores, of course, but academic books are their bread and butter. Since the South built most colleges and universities inland, the coastal towns were deprived of these state funded academic bookstores just as their residents were of the opportunity of a nearby place of higher education.
Despite this, while wintering in Savannah 2017, I found time to read and so set out to browse Savannah’s independent bookstores. I was most familiar with Ester Shaver’s since I had my first book signing there and was a docent for Ester’s home a couple of years for the annual Savannah Tour of Homes and Gardens. Ester has since sold it, remarried and moved from the city. However, I didn’t make it that far. On Liberty Street I passed my first store, The Book Lady, and went in. I was very familiar with the building as I studied there in the 40s when it was the dance studio of Dorothy Davis. That acute attack of nostalgia was cut short when the first book I saw was “The Damned Don’t Cry” (not to be confused with the totally unrelated Joan Crawford movie of the same name). The main ‘character’ was a house despite the plethora of human characters. The house had personal significance to me but not nearly as much as it did for the main female character of the book. I bought it on the spot, turned and started home to read it. Again however, I didn’t make it that far. I sat on the first park bench I passed in Colonial Cemetery and only put it down when chores, company or eye fatigue called.
The book was out of print for 50 years because it was definitely not politically correct. However it was an excellent book and I highly recommend it. As one of my visitors who noticed it said, it would hurt a child to the core to read such descriptions of his ethnicity. I agreed. Can’t imagine why any child would wish to or be allowed to read the book. It had bigotry loud and clear but as I pointed out at least it was equal opportunity bigotry. It left no class, ethnicity nor gender un-offended. It was a snapshot of a time when the whole world practiced wholesale bigotry. It was an excellent read.
Friday, March 26, 2010