Serendipity

Before there was Amazon one-click ordering, there was the serendipitous joy of finding a book that I've been wanting to read for a long time on a dark dusty shelf in the nether regions of the library.

Though it could be any book, this time it's Wallace Stegner's When the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs. I can already tell that it will be a keeper, that I'll probably end up buying a copy of my own through — yes — Amazon one-click ordering.

But back to serendipity, to the way it feels to look up a book in the library catalog (and in the old days those wooden boxes ), scribble the number on a card and then go in search of it. This might take a while, especially if it's a Dewey Decimal system; those numbers always give me headaches. But soon I have zeroed in on the row, then the shelf and then (miracle of miracles) the book is actually there, where it is supposed to be.

What's captivating about the library find is the book's tangibility, its placedness, it's being there. But what fuels the joy of discovering it? It's the plain simple (but intangible) fact that good books, in some way, become a part of us. More us than our bones and breath.