Book donations to Bill & Rosa’s Book Room.
So who are the people who donate their books to Bill & Rosa’s Book Room? Each donation is different and brings a new profile and trip to some very interesting apartments and towns. Many people give us their entire libraries at once, some bring in a few books at a time. For example Barney’s estate donated more than 2000 books on Paris, art and novels. Barney was an American who lived in Europe most of his life. His wife was German and they lived in Germany and then Paris. From browsing his library we can see that Barney kept busy attending readings and lectures in Paris. Many of the novels that had been presented at Shakespeare & Co and the American Library over the years are signed by the authors and include flyers about the event or newspaper clippings about the author. Barney was also a friend and fan of the Fluxus art movement which provided some incredibly rich hand crafted one-of-a-kind books. There was a portrait of Barney that came with the books and his book shelves. The portrait now hangs in the book room greeting visitors with it’s benevolent gaze. We call Barney the spirit of the Book Room.
Barney by Iris Hart
The very first book donations we received came from a gentleman in L’Isle-Adam, a town to the north of Paris partly famous because of its Olympic sized swimming pool that was inaugurated in 1949 with a dive by competitive swimmer Johnny Wiessmuller aka Tarzan. The Franco-American couple with the books were downsizing. He had lots of biographies that had belonged to his mother. One treasure from that pickup was The Age of the Tail by H. Allen Smith, a hilarious sci-fi spoof from the 50s where humans evolve and are born with tails. The fact of having tails causes all sorts of clothing, safety and social issues imagined by Smith. The changes to the society once the people have tails are profound and hilarious – a bit of science fiction, fantasy and all-out humor. The best part of this pickup though was learning how the gentleman met his wife… through a friendship ad in FUSAC in the mid 1990s!
Deelip, a 79 year old originally from India, donated about 700 books to the book room recently. Lots of classics and lots of dust from the 50-70s in those bags. A few gems made us smile like this book by Cheiro the famous early 20th century palm reader and seer. The book dates from after his death in 1959 and was published in India, so Cheiro’s influence continued long after his death. He was the seer of the rich and famous and though born in Ireland, he spent years in India and England then ended his career in Hollywood. There was also a set of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books in paperback and plenty of Agatha Christie who is a big seller in the Book Room.
Last year we picked up book donations from an apartment on Ile Saint Louis that had a beautiful view on the Seine. That view alone was worth the trip. The owner was an older woman who was cleaning things out for a future move. She offered us a lovely box of children’s books that had been her grandchildren’s. There were also a ton of classics.
One day in Paris 5th a lovely American woman of about 35 had us pick up books for a second time. She had lots of women’s history and novels from just a few years ago. They were in great condition too.
A contemporary artist named Pia who lived in a loft in the 10th offered her collection as she moved back to Norway. Another contemporary artist from Finland also made a donation.
Mrs Reed was moving back to Seattle after 30 years in France. She had traveled frequently to Italy and had many books about Italian food, food memoirs, gorgeous art books and astronomy. How’s that for an interesting combination?!
A French woman brought over 7 boxes of books. When asked what their story was she replied that her great grandmother was an English teacher at the turn of the 20th century. Her grandfather, though French, was raised in England and read only in English. Today she left seven boxes of family heritage with us as she just has no more space to keep them. She was a bit whistful but soulagée to have finally moved them for the last time.
A few years ago a woman brought in just a few books, all on the topic of spirituality. She didn’t come back to the Book Room, until one day recently when she returned hoping on of the books she had donated was still here. She said that when she had it she just wasn’t interested but some new events in her life made her want to try reading it again. It was about angels as spiritual guides. An angel must have told her the book was still here; This was the first time someone returned to the Book Room for a book they had previously donated.
Isobel and Martin donated a collection of British novels, Princesse Diana and Elvis books. Another couple, Americano-Danish, in Paris 16th had collected shelves of birds, ecology, the holocaust and JFK. One day the load was 100 exclusively romance and feel-good books! Another it was all thrillers. And nearly every day people bring in a handful at a time. Always something new. Sometimes very interesting, unusual or curious.
We recently received a call about a donation from Nina Salter, daughter of American writer James Salter. Nina was an editor at Alfred A. Knopf in New York and then moved to France to work in French publishing and was in charge of the foreign lists of French publishing houses Albin Michel, and later Calmann Lévy. She founded her own publishing house in 2002, “Editions des Deux Terres”. The books she donated are mainly history, biography and novels.
So you can see that we get all kinds of books from all kinds of people. That’s what makes it interesting and fun to pickup books and fun to browse through them. Come on over when you can, there’s a second hand treasure waiting for everyone. https://fusac.fr/bill-rosas-book-room/