flâneur

The American art of being busy. - by Henry Oliver

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We started the weekend by going to the book sale at the library. It is an American custom, twice a year, for libraries to hold large sales of books they no longer need in stock and books that have been donated to them. I was told that some ten thousand books might change hands in Arlington that weekend. Many are given away as well. This raises a significant part of the library’s budget. The prices are reasonable. I picked up some Naipaul, Dickens, Grail legends, Tobias Wolff, and several others. There are discounts for homeschoolers. These events are models of the American attitude. People arrive early with bags, trolleys, carts. As soon as one of the shelves is half empty, with books collapsing in the middle, someone arrives with a box to re-stack. The whole place was as busy as a hive. It went on and on. Everyone was cheerful. No-one fussed and bothered. Once again, in the country most supposedly dedicated to so-called atomised individualism (a muddle-headed concept), I found myself

We started the weekend by going to the book sale at the library. It is an American custom, twice a year, for libraries to hold large sales of books they no longer need in stock and books that have been donated to them. I was told that some ten thousand books might change hands in Arlington that weekend. Many are given away as well. This raises a significant part of the library’s budget. The prices are reasonable. I picked up some Naipaul, Dickens, Grail legends, Tobias Wolff, and several others. There are discounts for homeschoolers. These events are models of the American attitude. People…

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