18 Miles of Books

This past weekend, I was in NYC visiting my sister, brother, and sister-in-law.  We had some time to kill before our dinner plans, so we stopped at one of my favorite book stores ever ...  Strand Book Store. 

Yes, no need to pinch yourself, it's true ... 18 miles of books.  Barnes and Noble and Borders cannot compete.  Not only is the sheer quantity of books amazing, but the organization and displays are equally impressive.  The shelves are all made of true wood (not laminate or compressed whatever made to look like wood) and there are wooden "tables" displaying books throughout the main aisles.  One of my favorite parts about the store are the random ladders throughout the aisles for anyone (not just store employees) to use.  I LOVE that!  I didn't take any pictures in the store, but I found one on flickr so you can see a ladder in the aisle.

Those close to me are fully aware of my recent love affair with Rainer Maria Rilke.  If you follow me on Facebook, you've probably also noticed that I tend to post a lot of quotes by him.  I hunt down the poetry section in every book store which I step foot to see if they sell any Rilke.  Usually they do, happily.  Not so happily, the books are always quite expensive, so even though I love his poetry, I did not yet own anything by him.  That all changed this weekend.  Thanks to Strand's amazing prices, I purchased a book by Rilke with a publisher price of $14.00 for less than $8.00 after taxes.

I will leave you with Sonnet 7 from his collection Sonnets to Orpheus, the second series.  They're all amazing, so I just picked one.

I wish I could speak with such beauty about flowers being cut and arranged :)


Flowers, ultimately sisters of arranging hands
(those hands of girls from now and then)
who often lay from end to end across the garden
table, drooping and gently wounded,

waiting for water that would rescue you.
once more from that beginning death, and now held
up again between the streaming poles
of sympathetic fingers that can do

even more good than you guessed, light ones,
when you found each other again in the vase,
cooling slowly, exuding warmth of girls like confessions

from yourselves, like dreary and exhausting
sins committed by your being plucked, but as
a bond again with them, your allies in blooming.

Photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/16151021@N00/4400554590/.