My Life in Seventeen Books

The only reason I was ever in Walnut Creek, California to stumble upon my Tales of the Hasidim was because I had targeted a new toy company to try and convince them to stock our illustrated children’s books. An early flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to San Francisco, followed by a rental car counter and drive, lunch with a regular customer in Berkeley, and then a short drive to Walnut Creek, landed me in an enormous field of asphalt: the new toy company’s parking lot.

The business appointment went quickly, as they always did. I never went in for the top-handed shake or dog and pony show presentations. Don’t waste their time was my motto, and it seemed to work. I don’t remember precisely but she may have been one of the potential customers with whom I obtained an appointment by assuring on the telephone, “I will be in and out of your office in less than ten minutes, I promise.” This was said in response to, “I’m very busy. Just send me something in the mail and I’ll look at it.” I was in and out that quickly. All the more amazing, remembering it now, is that I flew 2,000 miles on such a whim and a chance. Such were those optimistic days of seeking opportunities in the books biz.

So I then had a free afternoon and knew where I would go: to what I’d heard were the best used bookstores in the area. Top of that list was Bonanza Street Books, named the “Best of the East Bay,” a store which is now sadly gone. It was the kind of used and out-of-print specialist that people on Yelp today complain about as “too stuffed with books,” as if having difficulty moving about in a bookstore due to inventory excess were a negative thing.

Right away I saw the Buber on display in an area marked “New Arrivals.” I picked it up and turned it over, probably in a way similar to how bread makers examine the bake of a loaf just out of the oven. I have seen a baker tap the bottom of a sourdough with his thumb, brush a forefinger across the top of the loaf, and then breathe in its aroma.