by Mary-Ellen Mess
“So many books, so little time”
-Frank Zappa
Red Bank Public Library is rather small as libraries go. Our collection numbers about 36,000 items. And the staff is constantly weeding out the old and unread books in order to make room for the new. Having been an avid reader since childhood, it pains me to eliminate any book from our collection and I am often disappointed to find that books that meant so much to me in my youth are missing from our shelves.
The town where I grew up in North Jersey boasted an original Carnegie library building just a block away from my Junior High School. My afterschool hours were often spent in that library and I would leave with an armful of books; window shopping at Miles Shoes or making a stop at Woolworth’s lunch counter before heading home.
Like millions of other readers, I enjoyed bestsellers like Up the Down Staircase, Valley of the Dolls, Roots, and Rosemary’s Baby along with cult classics like The Hobbit, Dune, Catch 22, and short stories by Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury. I loved Cheaper by the Dozen so much, I actually wrote to author Frank Gilbreth to tell him so and I still have his response to my letter tucked away somewhere.
My favorite genre then was historical fiction and it remains so today. I love to get lost in an epic saga: Exodus and later Trinity by Leon Uris, James Michener’s Hawaii, Andersonville by MacKinley Kantor, The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, and The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye satisfied my desire for adventure.
Some books stand the test of time while the appeal of others fades away. Grace Metalious’ banned book of sex and secrets in fictional Peyton Place would hardly raise an eyebrow today. Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is not quite as hilarious as I found it to be in my teens and I no longer have an appetite for the heart-breaking loss of Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud. John Howard Griffin’s ground breaking exposé Black Like Me has been surpassed by more compelling narratives by African American authors.
Perhaps nostalgia drives my memories of these books but for me Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion and Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn remain among the pantheon of great American literature.
While some of these oldies but goodies are no longer on our shelves here in Red Bank, they may be available as ebooks or through our consortium member libraries. As the corn flake ad advises, I encourage you to “try them again for the very first time.”