Books Galore

  So many books. So few readers. Sure, some people still buy books; memoirs are hot right now, but what percentage of the buyers ever read what percentage of the text is a matter of speculation.
   Our waste contractor tells us hard-cover books are not recyclable. Even at our small local library, I've witnessed the sorry sight of scores of "weeded-out" books having their covers ripped off in order to meet disposal requirements.  There are too many books and no one wants them. When Dave still worked in Albany, he would regularly donate  a carton of unwanted books from our own accumulated collections to the Albany Public Library.  They accepted them back then. For what purpose, we never knew.
   In the house right now are bins of books, of all different types.Sometimes I wish I could find a certain book to track down some elusive thought or memory, but the search would be an overwhelming one.
   Long ago, when I was first teaching, a fellow teacher of English had retired and was moving to Arizona. She was disposing of her properties, including a camp on the river. She gave us the key to her camp, and invited us to help ourselves to her lifetime collection of books, which were in the bookshelves that lined the walls. I have a memory of picking out half a dozen old books which related to the subject I taught. Some of them then would probably have been very desirable as rare and antiquarian volumes, but that market must have greatly narrowed over time.
  One of the books I took from the camp was a book that contained the poetry of Robert Frost, who was a popular writer then. The book contained not only his poetry, but also analyses of his most well-known poems. I have no memory of who wrote the critiques. That is one of the books I wish I could locate now, though I'm not sure it's still in my house.
    "Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening," that critic surmised,  was more than a merry jingle to a sleighride on a beautiful winter's night. A much darker element was proposed, a rather shocking insight into the mind of  the  beloved and avuncular appearing Robert Frost.
"...The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep"
 What if these words were not just the musing of someone who  casually stopped to admire the stark cold stillness of a neighbor's woods, alone, in the middle of the night?  What if the words represented the seduction of suicide, which was put off, at least for the present, because he knew he had responsibilities in life.