Pack a book as if it's sentient.
Most of the books I pack are older books about members of the family Canidae, so I tend to use my dog brain and imagine that I'm settling an aging pooch into a safe and comfortable traveling case.
My point is this: If you're shipping books this holiday season, you probably want them to please their recipients. Getting carefully wrapped books to their destinations in pristine condition is part of the pleasure you're sending. So even if books aren't sentient, those who love them are. And book lovers notice and lament bumped corners and other rough-and-tumble wounds that books can sustain in transit.
Books travel best in boxes. "The book sits not on the bottom of the box but on resilient packing material: crumpled newspaper, packing pellets, layers of bubble wrap. As you look down into the carton at the wrapped book, can you see space (at least an inch, or three centimeters, is ideal) on all four sides? Once the book is resting on the packing material underneath it, it's time to tuck it in -- as you would tuck up a baby in its crib or a puppy in its basket, not with blankets or your old sweater but with crumpled newspaper or bubble wrap. When the box is closed, it should touch, not the wrapped book, but the packing material placed atop it."
After the carton is sealed, take another precaution. "Reinforce all carton edges with a heavy-duty sealing tape. Helping the carton keep its shape helps the book travel safely."
Tempted to ship in padded envelopes? Fine, but please take a few extra steps for the sake of those lovely books you've chosen. "Once the book is wrapped, cut cardboard slightly larger than the book... The cardboard must be clean and dry, thick and unbending. Place the book between the cardboard sheets, and secure them with tape... Now wrap the cardboard-secured book in another layer of wrapping, such as several sheets of newspaper. Try the envelope on for size, and if the wrapped book moves, take it out and wrap it again. Keep wrapping the cardboard-protected book until it fits snugly and does not move in the envelope."
When your parcels are ready to go, safeguard your shipping labels with clear, heavy-duty tape.
Gift suggestions at Dog Lovers Bookshop include our own guide to giving books good homes and long and happy lives: The Care and Feeding of Books: A Simple Repair Manual for Book Lovers, from which the quotations above are taken. The book is available in hardcover and paperback editions, and its authors, Dog Lovers Bookshop's owners, will be happy to inscribe copies with the personalized message of your choice. There are not only easy-to-follow instructions, but also some tales of the bookselling exploits of dachshunds Houdini and Rose. It was dogs, after all, who helped us learn how to take good care of books.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
A Bookshop Dog's Journal: Part IV
When you're a dog, bookselling isn't always a walk in the park. Unless you're Phoebe B. Dackel this past November.
Phoebe was busier than usual last month, in the office, at home, in the park she loves so much. It's not my imagination or holiday-season-onset fatigue. It's all there in her daily journal.
Each page lists her five walks, with departure times and weather conditions, where we go and how we get there and approximate mileage, what's said of or to Phoebe in the elevator and the lobby and beyond, our encounters with squirrels and other friends, our discoveries of lost balls. There are notes about her meals, her naps, her official staff dog duties, and her romps and games. Recent highlights from her social calendar include a very happy Thanksgiving and a long, lazy afternoon that our beloved Pomeranian friend Lola spent with us.
Inside the front cover of every half-year-long volume of Phoebe's journal are columns that wait for numbers to be added as each month ends: one for total park visits, another for balls found.
That first column for November 2009 shows a number that frankly astounds me, even though I'm always there at the other end of Phoebe's leash. This is the dog who, when she came to me from Dachshund Rescue and the city shelter, was afraid of the outside world, for whom it took, her journal records, almost three months of approaches to the park before Phoebe would venture inside, and when she did it was with the help of another dog who understood and gave Phoebe a nudge to the shoulder that I witnessed and much I had no ability to see, some guidance, some insights, something more helpful than all the reassurances I had been offering (or trying to), some of what only dogs can comprehend and share among themselves: a release from fear for Phoebe, and a reminder to me that dogs need dog life as much as human companionship. That helpful dog, whom we knew only by sight, gave Phoebe a freedom that has taken her not just into the park but far beyond. It was her last fear, vanquished.
During this past November's 30 days, the dog who was afraid of the park has visited it 62 times. A new personal monthly best for The Phoebster!
If the weather cooperates (not that we let it run our lives), we may be looking at a new annual record for park visits. Sounds like an exciting post for New Year's Eve.
Phoebe was busier than usual last month, in the office, at home, in the park she loves so much. It's not my imagination or holiday-season-onset fatigue. It's all there in her daily journal.
Each page lists her five walks, with departure times and weather conditions, where we go and how we get there and approximate mileage, what's said of or to Phoebe in the elevator and the lobby and beyond, our encounters with squirrels and other friends, our discoveries of lost balls. There are notes about her meals, her naps, her official staff dog duties, and her romps and games. Recent highlights from her social calendar include a very happy Thanksgiving and a long, lazy afternoon that our beloved Pomeranian friend Lola spent with us.
Inside the front cover of every half-year-long volume of Phoebe's journal are columns that wait for numbers to be added as each month ends: one for total park visits, another for balls found.
That first column for November 2009 shows a number that frankly astounds me, even though I'm always there at the other end of Phoebe's leash. This is the dog who, when she came to me from Dachshund Rescue and the city shelter, was afraid of the outside world, for whom it took, her journal records, almost three months of approaches to the park before Phoebe would venture inside, and when she did it was with the help of another dog who understood and gave Phoebe a nudge to the shoulder that I witnessed and much I had no ability to see, some guidance, some insights, something more helpful than all the reassurances I had been offering (or trying to), some of what only dogs can comprehend and share among themselves: a release from fear for Phoebe, and a reminder to me that dogs need dog life as much as human companionship. That helpful dog, whom we knew only by sight, gave Phoebe a freedom that has taken her not just into the park but far beyond. It was her last fear, vanquished.
During this past November's 30 days, the dog who was afraid of the park has visited it 62 times. A new personal monthly best for The Phoebster!
If the weather cooperates (not that we let it run our lives), we may be looking at a new annual record for park visits. Sounds like an exciting post for New Year's Eve.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Books and Dogs and Holidays
If there are inanimate gifts better than books, I've never received one. Dogs are the greatest gifts in my life, but none came to me wrapped and beribboned; we met, got acquainted, adopted each other, and became family. It's tempting to say that we meet books, conclude that we'll be happy together and take them into our homes and love them, but books can sit unattended on our shelves far longer than a dog can wait for meals and exercise, tummy rubs and conversation.
A dog shouldn't be given as a gift, especially as a surprise during the holidays. When someone you know wants a dog, give moral and logistical support: encourage adoption from breed rescue groups and shelters, offer to join the dog-seeker on shelter visits or other relevant expeditions (a first-time shopper for pet supplies usually needs backup), remember to ask the questions the dog-enamored may forget when under the spell of a prospective new friend. The list goes on, of course, and you can wrap it all up with a book or two about dogs. Here the surprise factor is appropriate, the opportunities for pleasure and satisfaction almost as limitless as a dog's devotion. Dogs are not good impulse buys; books, however, are among the best.
You can give the gift of dog books to everyone you know (does anyone who wouldn't welcome a book about dogs deserve a gift?). One of the lessons I learned as a bookseller specializing in dog literature was that people want books about dogs even when they don't have dogs, can't have dogs for heartless-landlord-from-hell or nonmalicious reasons, or don't even want dogs. Maybe they long for the dog stories they read as children for their grandkids. Maybe they read behavior and training books the way some people who don't cook read cookbooks. They want every volume that contains a single mention of the breed of their dreams, the dog they'll live with when life goes right. Then there are the people with dogs at the heart of their lives. There's a lot out there for them to read.
The practicalities and hazards of getting a puppy delivered anywhere on the planet in time for the holidays should be enough to send you bookward. Books travel well, if well packed for their journeys. In The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New: A Simple Repair Manual for Book Lovers, I devoted several pages to packing and shipping advice, and in the spirit of holiday book-giving, will share some of these important pointers in a post this coming Thursday.
A dog shouldn't be given as a gift, especially as a surprise during the holidays. When someone you know wants a dog, give moral and logistical support: encourage adoption from breed rescue groups and shelters, offer to join the dog-seeker on shelter visits or other relevant expeditions (a first-time shopper for pet supplies usually needs backup), remember to ask the questions the dog-enamored may forget when under the spell of a prospective new friend. The list goes on, of course, and you can wrap it all up with a book or two about dogs. Here the surprise factor is appropriate, the opportunities for pleasure and satisfaction almost as limitless as a dog's devotion. Dogs are not good impulse buys; books, however, are among the best.
You can give the gift of dog books to everyone you know (does anyone who wouldn't welcome a book about dogs deserve a gift?). One of the lessons I learned as a bookseller specializing in dog literature was that people want books about dogs even when they don't have dogs, can't have dogs for heartless-landlord-from-hell or nonmalicious reasons, or don't even want dogs. Maybe they long for the dog stories they read as children for their grandkids. Maybe they read behavior and training books the way some people who don't cook read cookbooks. They want every volume that contains a single mention of the breed of their dreams, the dog they'll live with when life goes right. Then there are the people with dogs at the heart of their lives. There's a lot out there for them to read.
The practicalities and hazards of getting a puppy delivered anywhere on the planet in time for the holidays should be enough to send you bookward. Books travel well, if well packed for their journeys. In The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New: A Simple Repair Manual for Book Lovers, I devoted several pages to packing and shipping advice, and in the spirit of holiday book-giving, will share some of these important pointers in a post this coming Thursday.
Monday, October 5, 2009
A Bookshop Dog's Journal: Part III
Do you read to your dog? If you don't, Phoebe B. Dackel would like a word with you.
"You probably know of the good work dogs do with kids who read to us. It's therapeutic. The youngsters gain confidence and benefit in countless other ways from the presence of the canine listener, who is unfailingly described as nonjudgmental (and who doesn't need some of that now and then). Maybe you're not a kid with reading problems. Maybe you don't lack confidence. I'll bet you a week's worth of Margot's homemade dog biscuits that something's bugging you. Try some of the salve we reader-dogs apply to those kids. Read to us!
"You may be familiar with some of the studies that report how many human-language words we dogs recognize and, when it suits us, respond to as you intend us to. Kudos to the researchers, and may they all keep -- or develop -- a sense of humor. We dogs aren't dependent on your words, but we add them to our repertoire because we love you and we're curious. You bring us into your homes, and many homes are as full of words as books are. Bring us into more of your world. When you read to us we hear more than words. We know how you feel about them, how those words affect you. The more we know about you, the better dogs we can be.
"Reading together is another bridge between us. We love your voices, which convey more than words and their messages. Share your discoveries and puzzlements. Introduce us to your best book friends, the characters that your voices embody so well we just might be able to sniff them off the shelves if you misplace the books they live in. We love your laughter. If you're moved to tears, we'll comfort you. When you come to the scary parts, we'll reassure you. If it's a scary scary story, we can walk it off later and celebrate our escape from vampires or the stock market report with a treat or a romp.
"Can't even step onto the bridge, much less reach the other side? Think of reading to dogs as a new form of entertainment, a new game, a novelty. The television listings will do for starters. Watch our expressions and body language. You may find your read-to dog's reactions, and your responses to those reactions, add to the pleasure of reading. From the pleasure of reading, don't you derive solace, maybe a smile or two, some insight, a lot of super-escapism? Share these with the dogs who love you.
"My reactions to Margot's reading are noted in my journal. It warms this hound's heart to see how she's capable of learning from those observations. We get closer every time we curl up with a book.
"I wonder what we'll read today? I'll let you know."
"You probably know of the good work dogs do with kids who read to us. It's therapeutic. The youngsters gain confidence and benefit in countless other ways from the presence of the canine listener, who is unfailingly described as nonjudgmental (and who doesn't need some of that now and then). Maybe you're not a kid with reading problems. Maybe you don't lack confidence. I'll bet you a week's worth of Margot's homemade dog biscuits that something's bugging you. Try some of the salve we reader-dogs apply to those kids. Read to us!
"You may be familiar with some of the studies that report how many human-language words we dogs recognize and, when it suits us, respond to as you intend us to. Kudos to the researchers, and may they all keep -- or develop -- a sense of humor. We dogs aren't dependent on your words, but we add them to our repertoire because we love you and we're curious. You bring us into your homes, and many homes are as full of words as books are. Bring us into more of your world. When you read to us we hear more than words. We know how you feel about them, how those words affect you. The more we know about you, the better dogs we can be.
"Reading together is another bridge between us. We love your voices, which convey more than words and their messages. Share your discoveries and puzzlements. Introduce us to your best book friends, the characters that your voices embody so well we just might be able to sniff them off the shelves if you misplace the books they live in. We love your laughter. If you're moved to tears, we'll comfort you. When you come to the scary parts, we'll reassure you. If it's a scary scary story, we can walk it off later and celebrate our escape from vampires or the stock market report with a treat or a romp.
"Can't even step onto the bridge, much less reach the other side? Think of reading to dogs as a new form of entertainment, a new game, a novelty. The television listings will do for starters. Watch our expressions and body language. You may find your read-to dog's reactions, and your responses to those reactions, add to the pleasure of reading. From the pleasure of reading, don't you derive solace, maybe a smile or two, some insight, a lot of super-escapism? Share these with the dogs who love you.
"My reactions to Margot's reading are noted in my journal. It warms this hound's heart to see how she's capable of learning from those observations. We get closer every time we curl up with a book.
"I wonder what we'll read today? I'll let you know."
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Let's Celebrate a Book Lover's Birthday!
What are you doing on January 24th? The date falls on a Sunday in 2010, and Phoebe and I are hosting a tea party. We'll have home-baked cakes and dog biscuits, our very best rags and repurposed socks and other paraphernalia, and our favorite people, all eager to enjoy a book care bash in honor of a biblio-immortal.
January 24th is the birthday of Richard de Bury, an Englishman whose learning impressed no less a light than Petrarch. De Bury knew how to celebrate a birthday: on his 58th, in 1345, he completed his Philobiblon, often cited as the first book to extol book collecting.
In honor of de Bury and his creation, I'll ask every guest invited for the 24th to bring a book that has a problem. This will be a birthday party at which books, which always make the best presents, will get the gifts: whatever care they need.
I don't know if de Bury ever had a dog, but I know he had an impressive library that he loved the way dog lovers love dogs. He didn't just acquire; he cared about books' survival and well-being. Would he object if we undertook a vast and cheerful book care mission in his name?
Phoebe and I hope that you and your dogs, your friends and your books, will join us with a celebration of your own. We can compare recipes and exchange notes on repairs. We can make it an annual event, with global reach.
Is book care a chore? No! It's a wonderful new reason to have a party.
January 24th is the birthday of Richard de Bury, an Englishman whose learning impressed no less a light than Petrarch. De Bury knew how to celebrate a birthday: on his 58th, in 1345, he completed his Philobiblon, often cited as the first book to extol book collecting.
In honor of de Bury and his creation, I'll ask every guest invited for the 24th to bring a book that has a problem. This will be a birthday party at which books, which always make the best presents, will get the gifts: whatever care they need.
I don't know if de Bury ever had a dog, but I know he had an impressive library that he loved the way dog lovers love dogs. He didn't just acquire; he cared about books' survival and well-being. Would he object if we undertook a vast and cheerful book care mission in his name?
Phoebe and I hope that you and your dogs, your friends and your books, will join us with a celebration of your own. We can compare recipes and exchange notes on repairs. We can make it an annual event, with global reach.
Is book care a chore? No! It's a wonderful new reason to have a party.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A Bookshop Dog's Journal: Part II
On the last full day of summer, Phoebe and I went to the park three times. Phoebe greeted dog friends and met a puppy new to the neighborhood, watched four squirrels eating a hearty breakfast, and unearthed two tennis balls from the scraggly shrubs surrounding one of Carl Schurz Park's dog runs. I know what time we left for each outing, roughly how much distance we covered and by which routes, and the all-important weather conditions, including the dewpoint to which Phoebe and I are so sensitive. It's all noted in Phoebe's journal, along with the rest of our day.
When we weren't in the park, Phoebe and I were booksellers. I cataloged recent arrivals. I did some packing and bookkeeping. I answered e-mails and that quaint device, the telephone. Phoebe kept me on track. She took a nap that energized both of us. She reminded me when it was time for a break, which always means a cuddle and one of our precious visits with a book.
It's not just memories in the making: Phoebe's journal records more than activities. I note her reactions to new friends (no walk of hers is complete until she meets a person or a dog she hasn't met before) and new experiences (such as her recent first encounter with an earthworm in distress on the sidewalk; her exemplary behavior helped in the worm's rescue).
I note these reactions, of course, from my limited perspective. For all I learn about Phoebe as I chart her days, I am reminded that I'm only human, which fact I resent because I want to know more about the world as dogs understand it. Like all the dogs I've known, Phoebe teaches me something every day.
Phoebe and I celebrated the end of summer with more than bonus park visits. We unpacked her sweaters (she's a wool turtleneck girl) and gave them a good airing on the terrace. We bid a symbolic farewell to that menace, the heat index, and recalled, with reference to an older volume of her journal, some of last winter's stirring windchills.
We have a busy workday tomorrow, so we won't get to the park more than once. But we'll be there, at the crack of dawn on the first day of autumn, for which a page is waiting in Phoebe B. Dackel's journal. We wouldn't miss any of it for all the world; it's a little world all our own.
When we weren't in the park, Phoebe and I were booksellers. I cataloged recent arrivals. I did some packing and bookkeeping. I answered e-mails and that quaint device, the telephone. Phoebe kept me on track. She took a nap that energized both of us. She reminded me when it was time for a break, which always means a cuddle and one of our precious visits with a book.
It's not just memories in the making: Phoebe's journal records more than activities. I note her reactions to new friends (no walk of hers is complete until she meets a person or a dog she hasn't met before) and new experiences (such as her recent first encounter with an earthworm in distress on the sidewalk; her exemplary behavior helped in the worm's rescue).
I note these reactions, of course, from my limited perspective. For all I learn about Phoebe as I chart her days, I am reminded that I'm only human, which fact I resent because I want to know more about the world as dogs understand it. Like all the dogs I've known, Phoebe teaches me something every day.
Phoebe and I celebrated the end of summer with more than bonus park visits. We unpacked her sweaters (she's a wool turtleneck girl) and gave them a good airing on the terrace. We bid a symbolic farewell to that menace, the heat index, and recalled, with reference to an older volume of her journal, some of last winter's stirring windchills.
We have a busy workday tomorrow, so we won't get to the park more than once. But we'll be there, at the crack of dawn on the first day of autumn, for which a page is waiting in Phoebe B. Dackel's journal. We wouldn't miss any of it for all the world; it's a little world all our own.
Friday, September 4, 2009
A Found Book Joins the Family
Early one morning a few weeks ago, Phoebe and I were strolling home from the park when the keener of our noses demanded that we pause and investigate. Of the two of us, I'm the one who can read, but I would have missed the handwritten sign affixed to a battered carton. Was it scents from the shuttered restaurant that attracted Phoebe, or did she sense something different, smells arrayed for hands-on perusal? Did Phoebe, with her dog's wisdom, know that she was pointing me toward something I would enjoy?
"Help Yourself!" said the sign, and in the carton, like an untossed salad seasoned with some fairly strident condiments, were heaped cookbooks of all kinds.
I never met a cookbook I didn't like. I've been known to read cookbooks as if they were novels. What a cast of characters, and just wait until that stirring plot thickens! The villainous steak, the heroic leafy greens, the valorous legumes, the witty herbs and spices... But I digress. I fell for pure romance, and adopted Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts.
The book wasn't in bad condition. Some rubbing alcohol on a clean, lint-free cloth refreshed the laminate exterior. The edges gave up some residue. The pages were reasonably clean. I was already imagining how good some of those cakes and pasties would smell as they baked and cooled when I noticed that the book itself could be smelled, unappetizingly, clear across the room. From that moment until today, the book has been recovering, steeped in the savory scent brew in the carton in my office, my faithful colleague Buzet, who by making books smell better has much in common with restaurateurs and chefs: what smells good piques our appetites, for eating, reading, and cooking. That book now smells tasty, like a good cookbook should.
Thank you, kind soul who discarded a book I will care for and use. And thank you, Phoebe. You won't be sampling any of those recipes: consuming chocolate is my job. Home baking for you, dear dog, means only whole grains, and I know you wouldn't want it any other way!
"Help Yourself!" said the sign, and in the carton, like an untossed salad seasoned with some fairly strident condiments, were heaped cookbooks of all kinds.
I never met a cookbook I didn't like. I've been known to read cookbooks as if they were novels. What a cast of characters, and just wait until that stirring plot thickens! The villainous steak, the heroic leafy greens, the valorous legumes, the witty herbs and spices... But I digress. I fell for pure romance, and adopted Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts.
The book wasn't in bad condition. Some rubbing alcohol on a clean, lint-free cloth refreshed the laminate exterior. The edges gave up some residue. The pages were reasonably clean. I was already imagining how good some of those cakes and pasties would smell as they baked and cooled when I noticed that the book itself could be smelled, unappetizingly, clear across the room. From that moment until today, the book has been recovering, steeped in the savory scent brew in the carton in my office, my faithful colleague Buzet, who by making books smell better has much in common with restaurateurs and chefs: what smells good piques our appetites, for eating, reading, and cooking. That book now smells tasty, like a good cookbook should.
Thank you, kind soul who discarded a book I will care for and use. And thank you, Phoebe. You won't be sampling any of those recipes: consuming chocolate is my job. Home baking for you, dear dog, means only whole grains, and I know you wouldn't want it any other way!
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