Former Etsy Narrative for my Archives

[Here in my etsy shop, I share with you reclaimed paperbacks, many of them favorite books I’ve read myself, including pulp fiction, pop lit, bestsellers, and classics I haven’t.]

I have always loved books. It was my excuse to get a degree in English and the humanities (the one major that fed my reading addiction). Besides going to the library every Saturday with my sisters and dad as a child, I ended up working in libraries for years starting in high school and through college. Before he took off for Vietnam, after he’d moved us North in case he didn’t come back, my dad took us to the local library to meet the children’s librarian, Mrs. Nickerson. He did come back and we continued our weekly library jaunts to libraries wherever we were living at the time from Steubenville, Ohio, to Oceanside, California, back to Cape Cod and more. When I had my own children, the library was an outing at least once a week, usually more. We’d spend hours there in the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, Vermont. Libraries always felt like home to me. Even on vacations, we always went to the local library.
A library job is what brought me from Vermont back to the Cape, and while the job didn’t work out (people change) and I miss Vermont terribly, my love of books remains constant and saves me from total despair at times.

[While some of these books are well worn, they are not in tatters and still highly readable. Some are even written in so you can share another reader’s journey as you take your own. With a book, you can escape to all over the world. You can inhabit the life of someone else when you need to escape from your own. You’re never alone with a book. And along with a book, goes a good cup of tea. I am a tea connoisseur as well as a bibliophile and will include in each package some hand-stuffed and tied bags of some of my favorite teas. Enjoy!]

Etsy


I’ve not had anything in my etsy shop for quite some time but thought I’d give it a go again with my latest idea. I love Persephone books but I’m not about to start a publishing company reprinting some of my favorite OOP (out-of-print in library lingo) books, or just plain favorites from my reading history. But I do love books and I do love tea, both of which I also like to share.

So my etsy shop is now a place where I will sell vintage and thrifted, otherwise homeless books along with some of my favorite teas. The catch is of course, trust. The customer trusting that the book I send they will enjoy because I am covering the books with maps and brochures from my travels. So there will be no conscious choice in this other than that someone decides they need a book and some tea (or perhaps a friend needs it), and I am the book lover to send it, so it is sent. I will also have no idea what book I am sending out to someone.

Why? Sometimes surprises are good. And sometimes what appears to be a surprise at the time may prove to be synchronicity. Like maybe there is a particular book someone is needing to read or reread and through no conscious work on my part or theirs, that is the book that appears in their mailbox. The only choices will be around the tea — and that I’m working on. For now I just have vanilla rooibos. And sometimes I’ll probably include a couple vegan cookies for good measure (I’m having a ball creating recipes for them and sharing the cookies). Just because. It’s kinda fun, you know?