Here’s my haul for this year’s Bryn Mawr Book Sale (held not in Bryn Mawr, but at the Stuart Country Day School in Princeton). There used to be a lot of classical CDs on offer. For some reason, they no long seem to accept them as donations, even though there are still plenty of crappy DVDs. Be that as it may, the real draw is the books.
Unfortunately, as a former book dealer, my consumption is somewhat dulled, as I’ve seen and acquired so much over the years. (Chain stores are totally ruined for me.) I have a storage locker full of collectible material I need to sort through and get rid of, if anyone is even interested anymore. Still, in this regressive age, it is cheering to see so many people at a book sale milling about with filled shopping bags.
After two humdrum years with no CDs and little else to entice me, you can imagine my excitement to find a table of honest-to-goodness classical music books. And not just Gilbert & Sullivan anthologies and the same three to five books you see everywhere. (I’m looking at you, Arthur Rubinstein’s autobiography.)
At first, I wandered lonely as a cloud, gazing through a fog at a table full of books on popular music. A few boxes of sheet music barely registered. Then, voilà (not to be confused with viola) – suddenly I was on the hook for Beethoven, Mozart, Schoenberg, Webern, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, and even Offenbach. Of particular interest is a paperback on Sibelius from 1952 – when the composer was still alive – full of fun photos.
Some of these titles were from the collection of Princeton University librarian Peter Cziffra (his name is stamped on the bottom edges). Amusingly, in the general biographies section, I found a book on Alban Berg, with “BERG” scrawled in magic marker along the top edge. Either Mr. Cziffra had the book stored with that edge facing out, or he was just sitting at his desk at some point with nothing to do.
I also bought two books that have nothing to do with music. Well, I suppose one of them does, tangentially, as George Barrow’s “The Romany Rye” is a sequel to “Lavengro,” said to be one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ favorite books.
The other is by Henry Kingsley, the brother of Charles Kingsley (author of that Victorian children’s classic, “The Water-Babies”). I’d never heard of Henry and the back cover didn’t reveal much, but I loved the title – “Ravenshoe.” And I just know any company that went by the name Bison Books had to have reissued it as a labor of love. This is one of those occasions when it definitely came in handy to have a smart phone, as I was able to find out a little more about Henry and his novel, which apparently culminates in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sign me up!
I wonder how many of these I’ll actually read before I die. In my field, though, at least the music books are good reference.
Established in 1931, the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale bills itself as the longest-running and largest sale of its kind on the East Coast. Proceeds go to scholarships for local students attending Bryn Mawr and Wellesley Colleges. The cause is all well and good, but I’d contribute more if they brought back the CDs.
This year’s sale runs through weekend (open until 8:00 tonight, 5:00 on Saturday, and 2:00 on Sunday).
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