Welcome to Eco-fiction’s feature Discover!, which began after the 2015 holidays, when I received a nice gift card from my boss and found the perfect place to spend it: at the only local used bookstore for miles around, the Olde Jolly Bookstore. There, for $50.00, I began my search for old, no longer talked about much, or perhaps forgotten books with eco-themes. My first trip resulted in a surprise treasure trove. It reminds me of similar excursions throughout the years. I wanted to share my discoveries with others. Updated note: the Olde Jolly Bookstore, the last used bookstore in the tricities area, where I live, is now closed.
Monthly Book Club:
- Dance of the Coyote, Bill Hotchkiss
- Specks, Michael McClure
- A Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson
- Eco-Fiction, edited by John Stadler
- The Other Side of the Mountain, Michael Bernanos
- In Search of Captain Zero, Allan Weisbecker
- On the Beach, Nevil Shute
- The Faith of a Coast Salish Indian, Diamond Jenness
- A White Umbrella in Mexico, Francis Hopkinson Smith
- Minus Tide, Kevin Opstedal
- The Willows, Algernon Blackwood
- Lost Horizon, James Hilton
- Paradise Lost, John Milton
- Exploring the Ecological Weird, Part I
- Exploring the Ecological Weird, Part II
- Exploring the Ecological Weird, Part III
Discover! features lost, forgotten, old, or used books. (Please support your neighborhood bookstores!) This feature is a continuance of a library I began building in my home. See below for a few photos of this library. We have since moved from that old house with ancient wood paneling, and our current living room is a bit smaller. But we still have all the same shelving.
When I built the library, I didn’t want to buy new materials, so used existing bookshelves we’d had for years. To expand the library when my used book-buying grew, I bought used wine crates from local signature BC Liquor Stores. They take reasonably priced donations, which go to a good cause, such as the Children’s Hospital.
I stained the wine crates and decorated the shelves with not just books but neat antiques I’d found at used stores in the area. One of my goals was to build something I really like and will use (all the time) by reusing what others have discarded. We live in a world of mass consumerism, where people want to always have new this-and-that. I am big on buying old this-and-that. It not only reduces waste, it is an act of discovery–and in this process, I’ve found so many gems. Not only did I find books I had never heard of, or, perhaps had but wanted to read, I often found interesting artifacts, such as notes inside the books. from one person to another. At times some of these notes were in languages I didn’t understand. I will post these notes from time to time as well!
