Jack Neely, everyone’s favorite chronicler of life in Knoxville, has a nice piece in this week’s issue of the Metro Pulse about his recent efforts to sell some old books. It’s a great glimpse into the lives of book lovers and the dealers who support their habits, with nary a mention of Borders or Barnes and Nobles in sight.
Neely’s always a fun read. I especially like his description of The Book Eddy:
An intriguingly odd place where the books share space with strange curios: ancient maps, yellowed old globes, a gas mask, a ceramic peanut with an eyeless Jimmy Carter smile, a stage-prop diving helmet, jack-o-lantern gourds, a raven, a stuffed duck under glass, the remains of a spiny pufferfish that seems to have expired in full puff. A card warns, “Caution: extremely sharp fish.”
Penelope, the black cat, is the disdainful hostess. My 13-year-old daughter remarked that the Book Eddy seems like a perfect setting for a murder. On hundreds of shelves are books from many eras about many subjects. Railroading, enzymology, lesbianism, Napoleonic warfare, electro-chemical engineering. They have a total of about 150,000 books in this store alone. Browsing is dangerous. Even if you quit your job, you don’t have enough time in your life to read half of the books at the Book Eddy. Looking at each book at the Book Eddy for one minute each, during their business hours, will take you a full year. And by then they’ll have thousands more.