The Quest for a Rare Book

I read a lot. The amount of books I read has diminished in the past few years, but I still manage to stalk, overpower, consume, and digest several books a month. Lately I've been getting in on some of the audiobook phenomenon and it's been nice. Not extraordinary, because I will always love the weight and smell and feel of a true book*, but it has had its advantages, such as listening to beloved Narnia tales alongside my little lady.

*Before you label me as a "book hipster", I'll have you know that the word you're searching for is "bibliophile". I DO like reading ebooks but often find the process for adding books to my Kindle or smartphone akin to wrangling an ostrich into pajamas. One day I'll be able to take my Kindle into my local library and "e-borrow" (as much as I hate the fad of adding "i" or "e" in front of things to make them sound techy, I wasn't sure how to explain my idea) a book for three weeks. When that day comes, I'll drop real books like they're full of termites.

But there are certain books that cannot be downloaded, copied to a PDF, or sent to an e-reader. Neither would they fare well as an audiobook. This post is about such a book.

One of my most favorite man-made objects ever created is the Lockheed SR-71 stealth plane, nicknamed "Blackbird". You may not recognize the name, but you'll definitely recognize the plane. We're talking about an icon of American Freedom right up there with bald eagles and Abraham Lincoln.

Every time I look at that magnificent beast, I appreciate it even more.

The SR-71 retired from the skies when I was still in diapers so I have never seen one fly, but I have seen two of the exquisite creatures in person. One, in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, and the other in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. If I were to take a road trip starting at one museum and ending at the other, it would take me roughly 42 hours by car, traveling over 2,873 miles. The SR-71 could do the same trip in 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 17 seconds while averaging 2,112 miles per hour. Seriously, don't even get me started about this aircraft unless you want to be completely DELUGED with trivia.

But how does one become packed with trivia about an airplane that has little public information released? You read books about the airplane, of course! And the best books are written by the builders, the engineers, and the pilots that spent countless hours with the airplane. A few months ago I discovered an online article written by SR-71 pilot Brian Shul. The article was excellent and I wished there were more. In the comment section was a mention of a book Mr. Shul had published called "Sled Driver."

Cool, I thought. Maybe I'd buy a copy off Amazon. SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A USED COPY?? (or $1,999.95 + $3.99 shipping if you want the collectible version.) Good gracious, I haven't seen prices that bad since I bought textbooks for college classes. Perhaps I would download the book or borrow it from a library. NO DOWNLOADS OF ANY KIND AVAILABLE, EVEN THE ILLEGAL TYPE OF DOWNLOADS?? What kind of ultra-rare book am I dealing with here? It turns out that crafty Mr. Shul had released a very limited run of his book; a giant glossy coffee-table monopolizing tome filled with photographs that he personally took of the airplane. Supposedly, the way to sell expensive books is the following:

1. Take an exotic, secret aircraft that became an unrivaled champion of speed and stealth for decades, swath it in a cozy blanket of top secrecy.

2. Get selected for the grueling, extra-top secret SR-71 pilot program.

3. Pass aforementioned program training (along with the extra rigorous physical examinations) with sanity intact.

4. Fly the airplane successfully without piledriving into the ground at the 3 times the speed of sound.

5. Write a book about your experiences. Snap a few photos.

6. Release ONLY A HANDFUL OF COPIES.

7. Profit.

Brian Shul has just recently re-released the book in another Limited Edition run with glossy golden book covers. Those copies, under the lofty title of SR71 Golden Anniversary Set are fetching the princely sum of, uh, $550? For a brand new book? Granted, that's still astronomical but used copies are more expensive than that. What's the deal, Amazon?

Faced with such a ghastly price tag, what was a purebred Mennonite to do? Acquiring a copy of the book just to read it became an obsession. None of the local libraries had a copy so I started looking into interlibrary loaning (or ILL for short), which is a cool book-sharing system (one could say that it's a SICK program hahahaha okay I'll stop). If a local library doesn't have a resource, it will reach out to its network of libraries to see if THEY have the resource. If they do, the local library will borrow it on your behalf. I started by asking the ponderously large Iowa City Public Library and they informed me that "...[ILL] is just for Iowa City residents, you country peasant!*"

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" -Monty Python

*I may have added the "you country peasant" part. In reality, the ICPL librarian I spoke to was stern but kind. That seems to be the norm for all librarians worldwide, as if they all attended the same college and learned how to be stern and informative and quiet hahahaha but seriously.


Next, I visited a small local library about five minutes from my home in the town of Wellman. The Wellman-Scofield Public Library is run by one of my most favorite librarians, a sweet lady named Carol. Carol is not stern in the slightest (maybe she missed the Stern Librarian course in college?), even when I forget to bring in my library card to borrow items...which is every single time I visit the library. I told her about the book, which by now had grown its own identity, that of an elusive hardcover unicorn. I admitted that I wouldn't be surprised if there were zero copies available. After all, who gives a $700 limited-run book to a public library? And what library would let grubby little kids mash their Cheeto-stained fingers all over the aforementioned $700 book?

Carol checked the ILL database that her library was affiliated with. The database contained literally dozens of libraries across the state of Iowa, which may come as a shock to those of you who thought Iowa contained 2.5 towns, at most. A most surprising search result came back: there was one copy of Sled Driver in the library database. Huzzah and hip hip hoorayyyyy! I nearly shouted, until I remembered I was in a library. Carol explained that she would have to send in a request to see if the library would send the copy to Wellman. If so, she would give me a call when the book arrived. I thanked her and left, knowing full well that no library in their right mind would transfer that book. After all, what library loans out a $700 book to let OTHER library districts get their Cheeto-crusted fingerprints all over it?

The Harlan Community Library in Harlan, Iowa, that's who.

Carol called me several weeks later and told me that my book had came in. I didn't have to be reminded which book she was referring to. I rushed over to the library and picked it up.

 *reverent whisper* I FOUND ONE IN THE WILD.

The book was extremely good, just as I had hoped. I took my time and enjoyed reading through the chapters, getting to know the author and the plane just a little bit more.

It cost me $1.50 in ILL postage to read this book. Take that, Amazon resellers! 

I was tempted to take a photo of every single page and make a PDF or eBook but I decided against it because A) the real book is just too wonderful to confine to a series of photos and B) the pursuit of the book was half the fun.

After I finished reading the book, I passed it on to my dad, and then my fiance's dad. Is it a coincidence that I'm marrying a woman whose father loves the same aircraft that I do? Yes, that part was a coincidence.

Brian Shul is truly an amazing author, and like many have already commented on forums and Amazon comment sections, Brian makes you feel like you're in the cockpit with him. The book didn't contain the story I had read online, which I found slightly odd...WHAT!? Brian Shul wrote another book, entitled "The Untouchables"? I MUST ACQUIRE A COPY.

*Checks Amazon* Amazon wants $200 for a used "In good shape" copy of The Untouchables?? *sigh* The book is about as difficult to obtain as its name implies.

Those of you who have been following the links in this article saw that the SR-71 Golden Anniversary Set includes a copy of Sled Driver and The Untouchables. The Mennonite in me wants to buy the Golden Anniversary set for $550, read the books several times, then run to Amazon to sell Sled Driver for $700 and The Untouchables for $200, thereby making a fabulous profit.

Eh, maybe I'll just check my local library again.

Small local librarys are truly lovely. Take a little time out of your week to stop in and visit yours.

The Man with All the Books

     "Do you smell sewer?" The Homeowner asked.

     "It does smell a little musty down here." I replied, peeking around a teetering stack of books.

     "I've been working down here for five weeks straight, ever since the water came up, to clean up this mess." He said.

The Great Flood of 2013 had backed up city drains and filled our customer's basement with two inches of water. Normally, a basement can handle two inches of water with only minor damage to property. But not in a house filled with books. I didn't doubt him when he said he'd been working for five weeks.

I glanced around the well-lit basement in the customer's home, searching for the furnace room. Books, piled everywhere, kept me from identifying where one room began and another ended. A single well-worn path in the carpet wove between veritable mountains of knowledge and learning. Hundreds of books. Thousands, maybe. Given no choice, I followed the path. It curved right over to the utility room, so I poked my head in. My coworker, Stan, was working on the furnace, checking the filter. He was having difficulty pulling the filter out due to the lack of space. Once he had seen that the filter was good, he began to head back toward the surface. But the thin path did not allow for passing, so I backed out of the furnace room, all the way to the stairwell. Then, remembering that each side of the stairs were stacked with books, I ducked behind a door so Stan could exit.

     "I lost a book worth $1,000." The Homeowner sighed.

I imagine he finds value in every book he finds. Why else collect them?

     "It was damaged beyond repair." He continued. "Completely soaked."

     "Do you sell books?" I asked.

     "Oh yes. Yes, I sell books." He replied.

     "How do you sell them? Book shows?" I queried. I wasn't entirely sure if a man in his 60's would use the internet for selling books.

     "Oh, here and there. I sell them online, mostly. Right now I have 2,400 books for sale online. Occasionally I take some books to Crowded Closet and other places."

    "Twenty-four hundred books!" I exclaimed. "So would that mean you have around 4,000?" I tossed out a conservative estimate as I glanced at the stacks and stacks of books.

The Homeowner smiled.

     "I suspect I have a little over 40,000 books."

     "Forty thousand!" I gasped.

     "Oh yes. I've been collecting them since I was in my 20's. Now my boys are selling them, and they're in their 30's."

I did the math. Even if he sold every book in his place for $0.50, he'd have 80,000 quarters rolling around in his piggy bank. $20,000.

The Homeowner's sons were there, sweating and generally unhappy with their labors, which included transporting tremendous quantities of books from one location to another. But they silently kept at it.

I ran outside to see if Stan needed anything with the air conditioner. After all, that was the reason we had stopped by. The Homeowner mentioned that the air conditioner wasn't operating properly. We quickly found the source of the problem: the 220-volt wiring to the outside condenser had arced and burned a wire. The electrical disconnect box would need to be replaced. But first, I would have to locate the fuse panel and shut the electricity off to the box. I ran back downstairs, keeping careful check of my elbows lest they swing out and initiate a deadly cave-in.

I explained the situation to the Homeowner, and told him I was searching for his fuse panel. He smiled apologetically and pointed to a far corner of the basement.

     "There's a path to the panel behind the computer desk, if you can squeeze back there." He said, indicating a miniscule break in the towers of books, looming over a simple computer desk. The desk had a dusty computer monitor on it, running what appeared to be Windows 97. I squeezed behind the desk and arrived at the fuse panel. I located the proper breaker and switched it off. Squeezed my way back to the main floor path, glancing at book titles on my way out.

Whale Talk. A Box of Bees. Event 1000. Queen Sends for Mrs. Chadwick. Sudden Mischief. I'll Take Texas. Tuesdays with Morrie. Fire in Beulah. If I Die in a Combat Zone. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. "C" is for Corpse. The Last Catholic in America. The Intelligent Investor. The Wapshot Chronicle. Roosevelt in the Badlands. The Imagination of Disaster. Elsie's Holidays at Roseland.

I saw two copies of The Cat and the Curmudgeon stacked on top of each other. Both hardcovers. I noticed other books, nestled beside their duplicates.

     "What determines a valuable book?" I asked the homeowner.

He chuckled.

     "Quite a lot of things. Date of publication is one. With popular books, it should be a copy of the first printing run. Or a book of historical or sentimental value. The value of a book raises if it's signed by the author. The value is very dependent on the condition of the book. If the book came with a cover sleeve, it should probably have its cover sleeve."

In the background I heard the soft hum of dehumidifiers, working hard to remove a book's worst nightmare: humidity. With the air conditioner arcing and burning wires and generally misbehaving, the homeowner had to turn to small dehumidifiers to help keep his books dry. 

I glanced at a nearby mound of books and noted that there was half a dozen books by the same author, piled on top of each other.

     "Do you have these books categorized?"

     "Oh my no!" He smiled. "I don't have enough room. I have a small amount categorized, but I would need much more space to do them any sort of justice."

The homeowner's garage door was open. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were crammed with every conceivable topic known to man, bound in book form. There was a minivan parked in the driveway, also full of books. I glanced down the hallway on the main floor, only to be greeted by the sight and smell of thousands of books, filling every available spot. What I saw in that single glance would have caused any competent librarian to succumb to cardiac arrest. 

We repaired the air conditioner and said our goodbyes. The Homeowner was grateful for our service and made some vague comments that suggested he was slightly apologetic for the state of his basement.

We've worked for this customer for years, but this is the first time I've set foot inside the house. Dad tells me it didn't always look like that. It's grown worse and worse every year. There was a wife at one point, and she insisted that there were to be absolutely no books on the main floor. But over the years they piled up and overtook the main floor by force. I saw no sign of a wife.

I'm dreading the day we have to replace the furnace, because I suspect we'll have to tear it into pieces no larger than a basketball to get it out.

 The Homeowner's garage.

The Homeowner's basement.
























As we drove away from the house, I felt a strong urge to write a biography about the Homeowner. I imagined making multiple trips to chat with him, asking him all sorts of questions about his love for collecting books. Does he have any favorites? Any obsession for a particular genre? Although he seemed tired from the labor and bothered by the wet books, his general countenance was a man entirely content with his surroundings: thousands and thousands of books. I'd write a sensational story and enthrall literally dozens of readers with a book of my own, titled "The Man with All the Books."

But after 2 minutes and 30 seconds, I realized that writing a book for a man who hoards books is probably unwise. The Homeowner would probably take a copy of his own biography and just add it to a stack somewhere. He'd have 40,001+ books then.

So instead I wrote this blog. He's welcome to read it here, provided Blogger works on Windows 97.