Acting on my new resolve to get out again in bare feet, I just walked down to our RV park’s laundry room with a few already-read paperbacks to leave in our little lending library. I attend the local library’s annual book sale to restock the shelves (yes, that’s why I go to the book sale, cough cough), but I missed last year’s sale, and this year’s is still a month off, and the “leave a book/take a book” selection is altogether looking pretty sparse.

It has always interested me to see the ebb and flow of what moves through these shelves. Right now there’s not a single book from my last restocking, so the titles are like a peek at the inner lives of the campers who pass through.

The proper study of mankind is books.” ~Aldous Huxley

The famous ancient library at Alexandria apparently had an entire section called “Books from the Ships.” They would take books from vessels that arrived in port, make a copy of each book, keep one copy, and return the other to the ship. That’s not leave-a-book-take-a-book, it’s leave-your-book-(maybe)-get-your-book-back.

Well, at least the librarians were good enough to return a copy when they were through. (If the ship were in port long enough… They were working with scribes, not photocopiers!)

I find myself curious about the person whose job it was to wrangle books from captains and crew. I’m imagining myself now, checking in RVers as they arrive at our park, demanding that they hand over the books they have onboard. It would make a fascinating study… but it probably wouldn’t do great things for our online reviews. ;)