For the past twenty-seven summers, my wife, Liza Donnelly, and I have gone to the same Downeast home, and over those years, have built a small library of books, some New Yorker-centric (but many having nothing to do with the magazine). Copies of all of The New Yorkery books in Maine are also in the Spill‘s library back home in New York.
Shown above are most of the books either brought here or bought here at library book sales (not shown are a couple of Cheever titles, and a Frederick Barthelme title). I’ve yet to read the John O’Hara, John Hersey, and Emily Hahn books — but the others are well-thumbed. Just yesterday I took a look through the red book sitting horizontally on top, Alexander Woollcott’s While Rome Burns, and re-read his piece on Dorothy Parker, “Our Mrs. Parker.”
Occasionally, I take a book back to New York. Last year I must have taken home a copy of Thurber’s The Seal In The Bedroom. I’m not sure this very moment why I deprived this summer library of that great book. Will need to return it next year (or, better yet, find another copy here). Thurber’s still represented here by a paperback copy of one of my all-time faves, Alarms & Diversions — the book I long ago planned on permanently lifting from UConn’s library when I was a student there. I gave up the plan when I realized I’d possibly harm the book by tossing it out an upper story window of the UConn library to street level where an accomplice awaited with a butterfly net. What if the book missed the net? Unthinkable.
Years ago, at a local library book sale, I found (rescued?) a copy of The Gluyas Williams Book (published in 1929) at the bottom of a towering pile of used books. It was still in its dust jacket, and still in excellent shape, despite all the weight it supported. I had to bring the book home to join the other Williams collections.
The New Yorker Album Of Drawings 1925 – 1975 is the anchor book of the library. I think it was one of, if not the first New Yorker books added to this library. I often use it as a makeshift desk. I like thinking that just maybe some inspiring “vibes” from my cartoonist colleagues might seep through as my Rapidograph hovers over the blank page.
The book directly below Woollcott’s is Wolcott Gibb’s More In Sorrow. It’s a great collection of his New Yorker work. Unfortunately, the Charles Addams dust jacket is missing from this copy (luckily, the Spill ‘s library copy has a dust jacket). Addams is represented here in Maine by a paperback copy of Homebodies.
I notice now that the White and Angell family dominate the library: Scott Elledge’s biography of E.B. White; Onward And Upward, Linda Davis’s biography of Katharine White, and Roger Angell’s memoir, Let Me Finish. The White/Angell Maine connection is partly responsible for them outweighing everyone else, but there’s also the fact that each of these books is a darn good read.
The titles by Liebling, Benchley, Capote, Beattie are like good friends — I enjoy seeing them, being around them. Adam Begley’s Updike biography came up with us this year. I’m on my third read through, visiting parts I just had to experience again (last night I re-read the part about Updike driving into Manhattan to meet William Shawn for the very first time, but having to delay the meeting by a day because he (Updike) got lost somewhere in the vicinity of the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey). Someone should do a collection of pieces about Updike driving. About a decade ago, at a library sale up near the Canadian border, I found a first edition Of Updike’s Rabbit Run (still dust-jacketed) for about 75 cents. That too went back to New York to sit on the Updike shelf.
An addendum: After writing the above I found two New Yorker-centric books not shelved with the others: Thomas Kunkel’s must-read Harold Ross biography:Genius In Disguise and…Thurber’s aforementioned Seal In The Bedroom (1950 edition, shown left). I hadn’t brought it back to New York after all. Am looking forward to going through it now (for the millionth time).
Read the O’Hara. Not one of his best but hard to put down.