The Book Shopper

Battle of Atlanta Coincidences

I may be relatively new to this area, but I have had an interest in the Battle of Atlanta dating back to 1966 when our family took a trip south to visit the Civil War battlefields at Shiloh, Chickamauga, Kennesaw Mountain and concluding with a stop at the Cyclorama in Atlanta. The trip cemented my burgeoning interest in the War Between the States, which began with the Topps Civil War trading Cards that my brother and I collected in the early 1960s. (You can still see the entire set of wonderfully gruesome cards at the Authentic History Center. This card image comes courtesy from their website.)

That’s why for the second year in a row, I made it over to East Atlanta’s B*ATL which “commemorates the Battle of Atlanta in the neighborhoods which it was fought.” I tried to get a ticket for the OaklandCemetery tour, but it was already sold out, but the drive was not in vain as I did see “Gone with the Wind in 20 Minutes” by performance artist Doug Lothes, (shown), which was nothing short of hilarious. 

Part of my interest in B*ATL can be attributed to the book I am currently reading:  Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, which I heard about through a friend on my last trip to Knoxville.  Faust’s book is not about specific battles, strategies or personalities, (she assumes you already know about this) but her theme is how the unprecedented death toll in the Civil War directly affected everyone in the country and how it  shaped our current views of death. I really don’t seek out Civil War books and novels too much any more—even though that is certainly a popular topic for fiction and nonfiction here in Atlanta—but Faust’s book is not only well researched and tightly written but when she introduced me to aspects of the war I had never given much thought about, I was hooked.

Bookcase Testimonial

At some point all prolific book shoppers have to decide how to manage their books. Weeding is a possibility, but when you merge your library with another’s (like Denise and I did last year,) getting rid of a few duplicates is not enough. (But having duplicates in the first place is a good sign of compatibility, don’t you think?)

Fortunately our new townhouse has a long wide hallway on the top floor that we thought would work for a library, but getting the right bookcases (solid wood, not costing a small fortune) required a fair amount of deliberation.

After shopping from everywhere from Ikea to Crate & Barrel to Room & Board, we tried Craigslist, where we found Paul Nooks’ Neatnooksfurniture.  (His email is paulnooks AT yahoo.com) Working out of his home, Paul designs and builds custom furniture. Comparing price and quality, we thought his shelves were a great value. 

Not only are we very pleased with our bookcases, but we enjoyed working with Paul. You’ll notice that our shelves haven’t all been filled in yet, but that’s the beauty of partially filled bookshelves. Think of the possibilities.

Blog’s 100th Posting & Greatest Hits

To celebrate the hundredth posting since I began writing the blog in November 2008, I am taking the week off and taking a trip down memory lane to revisit five of the postings that readers unofficially frequented the most:

The Unabomber's Library, Part 2

May 17, 2009. This is probably my most visited page, because if someone wants to see a replica of the Unabomber’s Library, Google sends them here. I appreciate that the filmmaker James Benning let me host the photos and that my older daughter Cynthia made the connection in my behalf.

Readings: Rita Mae Brown and Padgett Powell

November 2, 2009. One upside to all this blogging is that it does motivate you to get out and see some authors. I didn’t write about every author I saw, but these two were worth the effort. I’ve really become a big reader of Padgett Powell’s work. I ended up reading both The Interrogative Mood and Edisto and I thought were tremendous books for different reasons. I didn’t get finish Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men, even though I picked up an autographed copy at Books Again. Sometimes you just have to re-shelve a book and try it another time. My biggest regret is not introducing Rita Mae Brown to a buddy of mine who went with me to the reading at the Margaret Mitchell House. My friend was plowing through her recommended booklist that she published 20+ years ago. He started at Beowulf and he’s now working his way through Edith Wharton. Maybe she would have bought him a beer.

T.C. Boyle at the Margaret Mitchell House

February 7, 2010. Nothing like a photo of a famous author in a Valentine’s Day red suit to generate some interest. I’d always heard that Boyle was flamboyant at the lectern and I had to go see for myself (he was).  I always like a reading when one a longtime reader of a writer grills an author. It’s really a sign of appreciation. At the Boyle reading, one woman (in a kind and respectful way) pointed out that a character from Boyle’s new book had appeared earlier in another book – a fact he failed to mention.

Thomas Chatterton Williams Meets Killer Mike

June 6, 2010. The popularity of this posting can be attributed to Facebook. I sent the link to the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams and he put the link on his Facebook page. He’s an author with a lot of friends, hence a lot of traffic.

The MARTA Book Club

November 8, 2009 to present. I’ve made seven postings documenting anecdotally (since there is no methodology) of what I observe people reading on MARTA. It started as a light satire on those book clubs mentioned in the Sunday AJC, but as since graduated to an obsession on what people really read.