This past weekend, B and I attended the 39th Annual Book Fair in Oak Park, put on by the Friends of the Oak Park Library. This book fair is huge; it is hosted in the Oak Park River Forest High School cafeteria and brags over 100,000 books (I’d believe it). We decided to go on opening night, which is integral I think if you want to get the best books. Not that you wouldn’t be able to find some gems on the second night, but the first night is so busy and packed with book hounds, as well as retailers with their little computerized book guns searching for what they need by ISBN, that I feel by night two your chances of finding your own personal buried treasure will have drastically decreased.

The prices for books at the book fair are outrageously low, and since I stick mostly to paperbacks I was able to acquire a considerable haul for only $16. But there are people who go there with dozens of bags, people who bring little wagons (I’m surprised I saw no wheelbarrows), and people who fill wine boxes until the books are spilling over. And the aforementioned retailers, well, they and their overflowing collections, stuffed duffels and canvas sacks, are everywhere. The cheap prices and the vast number of titles call to the bibliophiles, and if you attend this book fair you’ll be face-to-face with the ravenous humanity of all those who think books are worthwhile.

The book fair is an excellent place to people-watch; consider a hot and stuffy high school cafeteria on a summer night, over 100,000 books, and hundreds of people, many so absorbed in their search that they have no qualms with backing their rear-side into you, knocking you over with a bag of books without uttering any apologies, or forgetting that because they are attending a large event, with hundreds of people, in a stifled cafeteria, they might want to shower beforehand. There are books that everybody seems to want — before we arrived, B’s mother (hi Bonnie!) asked us to keep an eye out for Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife; throughout my time at the book fair, I encountered a handful of people wanting the same book. At one point, two different women asked one of the book fair volunteers, almost simultaneously, if she had seen that very title. And then there were books that nobody seemed to want. I have never seen so many copies of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections in my life. There were so many copies, both hardcover and paperback, I almost considered buying one myself (almost).

My own personal haul is eclectic, I think, as even though I told myself I could spend whatever I wanted, however much it took, I held back and only got what I thought I would really need and really read. Responsible, no? But I have to admit to you that I purchased three different copies of Moby Dick; I couldn’t help myself. One copy, in my defense, is going to be tore up and have its pages lacquered to the top of our coffee table. The other two, though, will reside on my shelf next to my other vintage copy of Moby Dick, donated to me by my own high school English department some ten years ago when they were clearing out their storeroom.

Keeping with the Melville theme, I also picked up The Portable Melville; this book contains pretty much everything Melville wrote besides Moby Dick, including Typee and Billy Budd, as well as stories and poems and personal letters and more. From another of my favorite authors, I bought All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy; those who know me know I love McCarthy and it may come as a surprise that I haven’t read this, one of his most famous books. I admit, I avoided Pretty Horses for a while as my writing mentor, Stephen Wright, once referred to the novel as “Cormac McCarthy lite.” Despite this prejudice, I think it’s also good to hold off on reading every book by your favorite authors and maybe save some for later; I haven’t read any of the Border Trilogy (of which Pretty Horses is included) nor have I read No Country for Old Men. That leaves me a couple books for the years to come, giving me a chance to continue to explore, for the first time, McCarthy’s oeuvre.

I picked up a few more modern books with Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, a novel that retells King Lear but on an Iowa farm and has been recommended to me a number of times, as well as Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America. I remember once sitting in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, killing time before class, reading from Birds of America. Keeping with the ladies, I also bought an excellent vintage copy of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, a book all of those interested in post-modernism should read, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I haven’t read much Morrison, only Beloved, but I’ve heard such great things about The Bluest Eye I couldn’t leave it.

Speaking of the bluest eye, I purchased Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter; I met Ford once when he came to speak to my writing class in undergrad (he attended my alma mater) and dude has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen; he was a dreamboat. I was excited to get Grendel by John Gardner; I’ve heard so many good things about this book and I love Gardner’s how-to book On Becoming a Novelist, it was a perfect acquisition. I can’t give any reason why I haven’t read this book before. Another good buy was Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird; Being There was given to me a few years back by my friend Rachel and I flew through that novel in a few hours. Here’s hoping Kosinski’s seminal World War II novel is as powerful, painted with his own brand of dark humor, as Being There is.

As a Faulkner lover, I can’t pass up a good vintage copy of one of his books and at this particular outing I was able to get a fabulous condition As I Lay Dying; I love this novel and it’s actually quite strange to me that I didn’t already have it. If you haven’t read Faulkner, or you read The Sound and the Fury and struggled, give As I Lay Dying a shot. Then you’ll see why Faulkner is one of the best authors the US has ever had. From the same period, I got Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood. Barnes is an author whom I’ve never read, and I say that with my tail between my legs. This book has been on my list for a few years now and I think it pairs well with As I Lay Dying and To The Lighthouse, and certainly I anticipate seeing shades of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Gotta love the expats.

Finally, we have Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Yes, another author who I am sorry to admit I’ve never read. I could not let this copy of Swann’s Way lie; it is a beautiful vintage hardcover, Modern Library edition. The dust jacket is still in great condition for its age and the pages have yet to brown. I’ve been meaning to read this for years and I can’t wait to tear into this copy.

Overall, a great collection of books for a very small pittance. I love book fairs, despite all the people, and if you’re in the Chicago area and are only now being introduced to this annual book fair, make sure to put it on your calendar. The book fair is always the first weekend in August. Maybe I’ll see you there next year.

Yesterday, to celebrate the beautiful day, B and I took a drive out to Oak Park to visit her parents. Along the way we stopped at the Brown Elephant in Oak Park’s “Arts District” to scope out some vintage bargains. The cool thing about the Brown Elephant is that proceeds go toward helping uninsured gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people at the Howard Brown Health Center, including clinical, educational, social service and research activities. B was in the market for dishware, as she’s a fan of vintage-style designs for plates and bowls and glasses, and I wanted to get my hands on some used books. I really don’t like going to used bookstores in urban areas because I always end up disappointed; usually the shelves are filled with Dean Koontz or Bridget Jones’ Diary and everything is completely picked through. Oak Park obviously isn’t as urban as Chicago proper but the citizens of this sleepy village are often classified as educated and being such are more likely to be readers. Now the Brown Elephant isn’t your normal thrift store. Sure, it has all the donated crap that one expects upon entering a thrift store but some of the stuff is really nice. I sat in a 70s leather desk chair that would be a perfect reading chair; too bad it was $200. I had never been in the Brown Elephant before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But as soon as I saw their book section, I was converted.

I approached the book section with trepidation, thinking that if I could just find one diamond in the rough the day would be successful. At first I saw the Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 edited by Dave Eggers with introduction by Beck; I’m a fan of the Non-Required Reading series and I didn’t have this one — score! But then more books started popping up. Martin and John by Dale Peck, one of the instructors at New School while I was there, was on the shelves. “Cool,” I thought. “I’ve been meaning to read this.” Then Jhumpa Lahiri and Gertrude Stein and Faulkner and Hemingway and Auster and Beckett. This used books section was a veritable trove of vintage glee. All told, I picked up 12 books. Then I started thinking about the prices. Maybe I would have to release some of these finds back into the wild. None of the books had prices on them, so I searched around for a legend or menu of some sort. My eyes lit up when I found it. Trade paperbacks and hardcovers were $1 each and mass market books were $.50. Are you kidding me? My total cost for 12 books: $11.50.

A couple of these books were particularly good finds for me. I was really happy to pick up an older edition of Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury; it matches my edition of Absolom, Absolom! and just looks really cool. What’s even better about it is that on the title page of the book, a previous owner had embossed a raised seal, much like the seal of a notary public, that reads “Library of Kenneth J. White” and in the center of the seal is his monogram, “KJW.” The pages are browning but it’s still in excellent condition, the spine isn’t even broken, no writing on the pages; if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this vintage copy had never been read once. This one cost me $.50!

While this one is a little more beat up, I was still really excited about the cover of this edition of Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill. I’ve never actually read this play, which is hard to believe, but now that I have this excellent vintage edition I know that I will get around to it someday soon. Off to my library with you, Gene!

And finally, probably the coolest of all, is this vintage hardcover edition of Something Happened by Joseph Heller, dust cover and all. This is a book club edition and it appears as though it’s from 1974. The top edge of it is red, while the bottom and side are natural; I can’t tell if the previous owner had colored it or if it came like this. Yes, it only cost $1.

It was a very good haul indeed. The complete list of treasures found is as follows: Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, Something Happened by Joseph Heller, the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, Three Lives by Gertrude Stein, a Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Light in August by William Faulkner, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, the Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 edited by Dave Eggers, Martin and John by Dale Peck, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, and Moon Palace by Paul Auster. Not too bad, I must say.

It’s not really news that Chicago politics are some of the most corrupt in the country. Does anybody really believe that Blagojevich is going to write (or rather have someone else write) a “tell-all” memoir? C’mon buddy. If Rod told any of the realities that transpire behind the closed doors of Illinois and Chicago politics, Mayor Daley would have Blagojevich’s head and hands cut off, bury them in some permafrost in the Upper Peninsula, and dump the remaining body into Lake Michigan. This book is going to be along the lines of all the rhetoric he spewed when the shit hit the fan. “I haven’t heard the tapes” and “they should have allowed me to call character witnesses.” Please Rod.

Selig said Blagojevich won’t “pull any punches” and plans to “reveal information and provide insights that will at times be embarrassing to himself as well as to others.”

Right. Rod probably has dirt on Daley and Obama and will not be allowed to say anything revealing. This book is going to run about 200 pages and will focus mainly on the media blitz around his awful hairstyle. Read all about it in this Chicago Sun-Times article.