Isn't it romantic?

When I can, I head to second-hand book shops and Opportunity/Thrift stores. There are a number of authors I like to collect and often these are the only readily available sources of these volumes. Yes, I know I can get them on-line but it isn’t the same as slowly browsing and discovering other tomes and treasures along the way! 0:)

The other day I was wandering through a local shop when one of my mother’s friends (a volunteer there) recommended one of her favourite romance writers. They help her to sleep at night. It wasn’t an author I was particularly familiar with but I seemed to remember reading one of her books when I was younger so agreed to give it a go.

My main objective in heading in to the shop was to find a book which wasn’t for work and was something I could switch the brain off over and relax with for awhile. But I picked up on her non-too-subtle hint that I could do with reading some good romances (apparently to “inspire” me) and compromised with her by also choosing an author more my style in the genre: Nicholas Sparks VS Catherine Gaskin. I’ll let you know how the challenge goes. I chose the Sparks given that “The Notebook” is my idea of a true romance novel. “The Wedding” VS “The Ambassador’s Women.”

I used to work as a store manager at Waldenbooks in northern California and the shop had over 10,000 romance titles on any given day. We were considered northern California’s primary source of anything even remotely “romantic”. One of my favourite customers used to call once a month with her order of nothing less than $500 worth of romance novels. Her husband had his fishing and she had her romance novels; that was their deal. She was unable to physically get to the store so she would have magazines sent to her reviewing the latest romance genre novels and by the time the next month came around, she’d be calling me with her list of latest releases.

I’ve never been particularly excited by romance novels, even when I was a teenager. It all seemed terribly stylized and unrealistic to my way of thinking. For awhile there I voraciously read Georgette Heyer but after who-knows-how-many, I suddenly stopped reading, looked at the last page and thought to myself that I was done. Same formula, same ‘ol, same ‘ol. And that’s when I realized I am not a formulaic reader and find no comfort in the familiar.

I think the next romance novel I read many years later was a Sandra Brown. Two more of her books later and again, I was done. More confirmation that I am not comfortable with formulaic books. I even get bored reading Agatha Christie. 0:)

Thankfully, not everybody is like me and the Waldenbooks romance novels section did a booming trade right up until the day the store’s doors closed after 25 years. I recall sitting on a low stool as myself and the other two store managers sorted through the last books on the shelves. Some publishers wanted their books returned to them, some wanted them recycled, some to other stores. Very few wanted the books remaindered or donated to charities (much to my disappointment although as an author I understand the reasons for them doing so).

But most publishers in the romance section wanted their books destroyed. We sat there tearing off cover after cover after cover after cover and putting them aside for the garbage scow: Over 10,000 of them. By the end of the day, the three of us were absolutely exhausted and frankly, in distress (or I was anyway and judging by the looks on the other’s faces, they were too). We weren’t in book sales without loving books ourselves: It certainly wasn’t for the poorly paid jobs we were doing every day! It was killing us to have to destroy so many books, on so many levels!

As I sat there tearing and hacking away, I thought of my customer and how much pleasure and relaxation she got from her ritual. During our phone conversations, she’d shared with me that she was ill with cancer. When she was too ill to call, one of her friends would make the call for her. Unable to travel herself, in the comfort of their formulaic principles and unchallenging formats, these romance novels transported her to otherwise inaccessible climes and circumstances. She wasn’t pining for their fantasies to be her reality; she was revelling in their imaginary, uncomplicated, overly-simplistic portrayals. There was enough pain in her reality. All she wanted was some escapism and to view the world through somebody else’s window for awhile.

And in my view, that’s enough.

Ellen 0:)