The Book Shopper

Revisiting Eighth Day Books

Arranged with the help of my longtime book friend Bruce Woods,  I first visited Eighth Day Books in 2009, during my world book tour for The Book Shopper: A Life in Review. Over the years, I have posted several times about this  great, independent book store that carries 25,000 titles in philosophy, religion, history and literature.  But that doesn't compare to getting a shout-out from The New York Times earlier this month who did a feature article on the bookstore and its owner, Warren Farha.  I think the article captures how the bookstore reflects the personality of Farha, but it fails to mention that he bares a striking resemblance to the actor Richard Gere. (Farha is on the left. Your blogger on the right - never confused with Richard Gere.) 

The article also mentions the now defunct Eighth Day book catalog, which I wrote extensively about in the posting "Spiritual Education Made Easy" because if you read the catalog it was like getting a liberal education in itself. Then there is another posting "Bookstores Near and Far," which reminded me of all the books I have bought and read as a result of meeting Farha.

 Coincidentally  Eighth Day Books is having a summer sale now through Sunday (5/31) with 20 % off on online orders over $65 (Use Code Summer2015).  Don't hesitate to call them at 1-800-841-2541  if you have trouble finding a book in their online catalog. Their knowledgeable staff  is available to answer questions or make recommendations.

I am getting ready to place my order after I post...

 

The Inaugural Memorial Day Parade

This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of the first Memorial Day Parade before there was even a Memorial Day. On May 23 and 24, 1865 Washington D.C. hosted the two day Grand Review parade of the Union Troops. The Army of the West led by William T. Sherman had completed it's capture of Atlanta and Savannah the previous autumn and had marched through South Carolina and North Carolina in the spring of 1865. They were about to join Grant's Army of the Potomac in Virginia when the war ended, but there was one last military spectacle left.

Here's an account of this extraordinary event from B.H. Liddell Hart's 1958 biography, Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American:

"On the 23rd, the Eastern armies (the Army of the Potomac)  marched in review through Washington, an endless column of troops well-clad and well-drilled, their ranks trim and spotless. Returning from the pageant Sherman, with his customary candour, declared: 'It was magnificent. In dress, in soldierly appearance, in precision of alignment and marching we cannot beat those fellows.' Then some one suggested that they should not attempt it but instead should be workmanlike and pass in review 'as we went marching through Georgia.'

Sherman caught up the suggestion and next morning as the people of Washington watched the Grand Army of the West defile before their eyes they saw no glittering pageant, but instead an exhibition of virility. With uniforms travel-stained and patched, colours tattered and bullet riven, brigade after brigade passed with the elastic spring and freely swinging stride of athletes, each followed by its famous 'bummers' on laden mules ridden with rope and bridles. The most practically trained, physically fittest and most actively intelligent army that the world had seen."

 

 

Brooklyn Book Shopping

This time on our book shopping trip to New York, Denise and I made it out to some of the bookstores in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn.  The most notable was Book Court, a spacious bookstore, well-stocked in quality fiction (I purchased The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgarov), children's books, nonfiction, and books about Brooklyn.  I also found a discounted copy of a 2011 book exploring perception in photography Seeing is Believing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography by Errol Morris.

The Community Book Store

A few blocks from Book Court is The Community Bookstore, which had not opened for the day. Looking through the store window, I must admit, was a little intimidating. My only thought was that this is what happens to books that are tossed in the dumpster. But photography, says Morris, can be deceiving, so you and I both should refrain from being too judgmental.