Traveler's Tales: Savoring Coas Bookstore

I could barely get my suitcase zipped up for all the books given to me at the American Fiction Writers’ Conference in September. I wasn’t too worried, even though I had two stops to make before returning home to the west coast. The best gift was Ann Voskamp‘s One Thousand Gifts, which I read on the plane. My personal favorite, of course, was my own A Log Cabin Christmas Collection, which I signed and gave to a dear friend in El Paso.

With those two out of my luggage and the zipper sighing in relief, I figured I was home free. My stargazing son in Las Cruces wasn’t going to give me a book.

No. But he did take me to visit a bookstore. “You’ll really want to see this one, Mom.”

“I don’t have any room in my luggage, Stargazer.”

“Trust me, this is well worth a visit.”

Coas Books, Inc. was a short walk from his downtown cottage on a beautiful warm late summer eve. We only had forty-five minutes in the store, but I was in rhapsody walking through the doors. It’s a used bookstore, you see, and they’ve got a lot of great old books.

I’m talking ancient books; not simply the types of books I read in my childhood. These are volumes my grandmother might have read. Look at the date on this book: 1910. My grandmother was five years old, though probably not reading The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua in Mayfield, Utah.

Who would have guessed there was an entire series, “sold everywhere,” about boy aviators in Africa, the Secret Service and facing death in Antarctica? Clothbound and 50 cents, the pages are still highly readable if brown and spotted with age.

I’m not sure what I smell when I stick my nose between the pages–because of course I bought it–antique paper? Pulp wood? Adventure?

Who knew so many “pulp book” series were written and published during the 20th century? The store featured an entire line of boy-readable tales from World War II. Red Randall at Pearl Harbor, anyone? How about Red Randall at Midway? Or as a midshipman? Or in Burma?

I opened the books to the front page and showed my son the statement about paper rationing during the war. Yet while some of these books looked fragile, they certainly could hold their own for a good read. Clothbound over pasteboard, I guess, makes for a sturdy 100-year-old covering. I could scarcely keep my delight in check as I danced in front of an entire wall of old kid books, none younger than 1950. What a find!

Indeed, the entire bookstore was a spin through my reading history. I recognized hundreds of volumes on the shelves as I wandered up and down the aisles. Here’s an edition of Mary Stewart‘s This Rough Magic I first read in 1973, there was one of the million mass-produced copies of Airport, auxiliary text books I used in high school; there were long-forgotten friends on every shelf.

There’s nothing new under the sun, as Solomon reminds us, and of the making of books there is no end. That sprawling, cranny-filled store in the center of town holds a treasure trove of satisfaction as it proves the wise king’s words.

I didn’t want to leave, so it’s probably just as well Stargazer brought me to the store in the final hour of the work day. I could have lost myself in the past, in story, in the joy of smelling the books, in touching their well-loved bindings and in remembering all the hours I’d spent in their company. Such a gift to be able to read. Such a pleasure to be told a great story. Such fun to share with my son.

Thanks, Coas Books!

But that brings me to a question. Until now, the oldest book I owned was a 1917 Pollyanna Grows Up. What’s the oldest book you personally own? How did you get it?