THIS WEEK’S BOOK YOU CAN’T PUT DOWN

I recommend another book you’ll never find on the New York Times bestseller list, but a book that will stay with you the rest of your life.

In keeping with the month of Halloween, this is one to scare you:

Once you’ve read the scariest books ever written, Halloween is never over, and you are never the same.

NOW READ THIS:

The scariest book I ever read: Castaway by James Gould Cozzens, published in 1934.

I don’t know why every teacher of literature, every writing instructor, isn’t assigning this book to students who are interested in really writing scary, writing well. This book leaves a lifetime impression and may even defy categorization. It could be called a horror story, though nothing really supernatural occurs. It could be called a dark fantasy, but there are no levitations or spells or exploding heads. It could be termed a remarkable work of avant-garde fiction, but nothing about it is pretentious. It might be a mystery, but it’s even hard to define what’s mysterious about it.

I won’t reveal more, because I want you to read it for yourself. Let’s just say it’s the story of a man trapped in a department store. Let’s just say it might be a re-telling of Robinson Crusoe. Let’s just say it’s a survivalist tale, a morality tale. Let’s just say it will stick with you.

The amazement of books such as this is that one short line can make you jump, can make your neck-hairs stand on end, can bring chills… 

 (“What he would do if he heard it, Mr. Lecky did not know. In despairing anticipation he feared to hear as much as he feared not hearing anything. To be pursued and know it was hardly better than to be pursued and not know it…”) 

READ AND CRINGE!

© 2010 A.D. by Jim Reed

THIS WEEK’S BOOK YOU CAN’T PUT DOWN

I recommend a book you’ll never find on the

New York Times bestseller list, but a book that will stay

with you the rest of your life.

In keeping with the month of Halloween, this is

one to scare you:

Once you’ve read the scariest books ever written,

Halloween is never over, and you are never the same.

NOW READ THIS:

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham  

 (“How do you get to be a geek?

I can’t understand how anybody can get so low.”)

William Lindsay Gresham’s novel about the dark edges 

of carnival life was written from his experiences 

with magic (he knew Harry Houdini) 

and midway life. The film, starring 

Tyrone Power, is equally dark and kind 

of oblique. One thing is sure—you’ll 

never use the term geek carelessly again. 

What a geek is will haunt you for years.

READ AND CRINGE!

www.jimreedbooks.com

IN MY SOUTH…

*Socrates (SEW-crates) and Socrates (SAH-cruh-tees) 

are the same person.

*Arab (A-rabb) is a place and Arab (EH-rubb) is a person.

*Geezers are sexy.

IN MY SOUTH… 

*People just come right out with it.

*We scratch when and where it itches.

*A speed limit is a suggestion.

IN MY SOUTH… 

*Accumulating makes more sense than collecting.

*We pretty much want to be wherever we are—and 

don’t you rush it!

*Dentists hand out lollipops.

IN MY SOUTH… 

*We admire women who spit and pick their teeth in public.

*Spitting and picking your teeth in public is mandatory.

*Chawing and kissing can go right together.

IN MY SOUTH…

*You can wear a tie to go to lunch, but you have 

to leave your jacket at the office.

*You never allow guests to leave your home without 

escorting them to the car and chatting for another fifteen minutes.

*Y’all is both singular and plural.

And so it goes. In my South, the only place I’ve ever lived, local folks and 

local customs and local habits continue to amaze me and make me feel right 

at home. What would it be like to live anywhere else? You tell me

© 2010 A.D. by Jim Reed

www.jimreedbooks.com 

THE JOY IN MY JOB

Most of my daily activity at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories 

consists of listening to people and often referring them to other trusted 

merchants and institutions. 

This is a free service, so you can understand why I seem grateful 

whenever someone actually purchases something.

A typical day at the shop frequently includes happenings such as these:

A customer tearfully recalls how much the “stuff” at Reed Books reminds 

her of the “stuff” she owns, and of her lost family. She smiles, reminiscing 

through tears.

Visitors from Tennessee, staying at the Tutwiler Hotel, remark on Birmingham’s 

beauty. They love the bookstore and the streets. I wish Birmingham natives 

could see the city’s beauty through most visitors’ eyes.

A little girl reads and collects Nancy Drew books. We chat about Nancy’s 

resourcefulness, determination, elegance, intelligence, wit—and wish our 

favorite movers and shakers possessed these qualities.

Two young women want an inexpensive place to eat. I send them to the 

New York Deli around the corner.

Two more women want images of old Birmingham to display at the Greenbriar 

retirement facility. I send them on their way to What’s On Second, a block 

or two over.

A scruffy gruff non-customer is looking for a cigar store. I send him to the new 

store on Second Avenue that replaced the mysterious Bohemian Grocer.

One customer wants a reading lamp—not antique or expensive. I send him to 

Standard Furniture Company, which has been across the street for most 

of a century.

A street guy is trying to sell a pair of snakeskin boots. I refer him to Goodyear 

Shoe Hospital across the way, which has also been there for nearly one hundred 

years. Maybe Rhonda will know what to tell him.

Tourists are looking for things to do and places to shop in Birmingham—they 

don’t believe the staff at the Redmont Hotel, who told them 

there was nothing to do Downtown. I excitedly tell them all the 

wonderful things to do and places to go Downtown, and send them 

first to Sojourns, Melissa’s fair trade import gift shop next door. 

They return later, thanking me for giving them a great day.

A New England publisher calls and wants to vet a manuscript about the 1963 

Birmingham horrors. I send him to Dr. Glenn Feldman, my son-in-law, who is 

a scholar of the Civil Rights Era.

One customer wants the exact lighted Santa Claus toy he had as a child, and I 

find him one on the internet. He is so excited I fear he will faint.

A young woman brings in a bag of books her aged father wants her to sell. My 

offer is generous, but the father has inflated ideas of the books’ worth. She 

pleasantly packs the books and patiently totes them back home.

A customer donates a bag of DVD films. She knows I won’t throw them away.

Two women bring in double bags of useless textbooks and donate them. I politely 

express my gratitude, then quietly donate them to the Salvation Army Thrift Store, 

so that they won’t have to lug them a couple of blocks back to their car.

In the early afternoon, it begins to rain, so I patiently bring in the book rack and 

record rack, so that my precious cargo won’t get wet.

PS: I actually sold some items today. I realize that the price of being in this 

business is voluntary service as bartender, coach and triage manager. 

Making an income is in there somewhere

© 2010 A.D. by Jim Reed

THESE ARE MY PEOPLE

Navigating the day, peripheral vision picks up things 

I can’t help but notice. 

I notice the people who file through my life. This 

relentless attribute has followed me since I was a mere lad. 

There are disadvantages to noticing much more than 

I need to notice, but the advantages, oh the advantages, 

far outweigh the disadvantages.

These are my people. They don’t know it, and I don’t 

know why…but these are my people.

Many Birmingham curbs are knocked down for the convenience 

of handicapped and elderly and wounded pedestrians. Many 

Birmingham curbs are not knocked down, and there is no apparent 

logic to how curbs are selected. 

One citizen I see is the knock-down curb-avoidance 

swollen-ankle brown-legal-folder-woman on her 

pain-free descent into incomplete city street engineering. 

She carries her burden to the curb, notices that there’s 

no ramp, and carefully circles ‘round to the next curb, 

which is smoothed down. Every step is taken gingerly, 

to avoid as much pain as possible.

One customer at Reed Books always catches me in the midst of his own 

monologue. He enters the store in mid-sentence and never stops chatting till 

he leaves minutes later—or scores of minutes later. He needs to know that I 

am listening to him, and I, the bartender, do my best to continue my work while 

paying attention to him. He seems happier when he leaves.

Then there’s the one-foot-wheelchair racer who tries to dodge the traffic while 

scooting his one undamaged foot on the sidewalk, creating  a manual scooter 

that helps him go faster than mere arms or wheels allow. Later, I see the 

straining-wheelchair-couple attempting to navigate and avoid four lanes of 

oncoming traffic while frantically pushing their big wheels with muscular arms. 

They make it safely across, and we the traffickers politely slow down to allow 

their passage.

As I drive the automatic asphalt lanes, sweet music from the radio brings peace 

prior to mayhem. My mind is momentarily settled.

Amazement # 456: I see a woman on her way to work who isn’t using a cell phone! 

Who isn’t texting. Who isn’t primping in the rear view mirror. Who isn’t day dreaming. 

Amazing amazement! What’s her problem?

The lone childshoe lies on its side in the median. From a one-legged child? From a 

two-legged child with only one shoe? Is it a fugitive shoe that got away from its mate 

on purpose? A purposely discarded shoe? An object thrown in anger? Something that 

fell off a truck? The lone childshoe deposits its own unanswered mystery as I drive past.

The long cyclist-slope-inertia-ride takes place before me. The bicycle takes advantage 

of a long incline to pick up speed and churn the rider’s stomach in exaltation. Hope he 

makes it safely to wherever.

The retired majorette still wears her majorette outfit and makeup and the memory of 

twirling rests visibly upon her shoulder and on her glossy scarlet-lipsticked lips. 

She purchases an old book on how to become a majorette and proudly tells me about 

her majorette days long past but ever present.

She joins my family without her knowledge.

These are my people. They don’t know it, and I don’t know 

why…but these are my people

--Jim Reed © 2010 A.D.

Begin every written work with this preamble:

Are you my word?
Are you The Word?
Whose word are you if not mine?
How did you get on this page?
Were you invited?
Can I get rid of you?
Oops!
Too late.
 
Now, what will I do with you
 
© 2010 A.D. by Jim Reed

www.jimreedbooks.com

THE MAGICAL CVS AUTOMATIC DOOR WAND

The thousands upon thousands of children’s storybooks that merrily surround customers at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories count for nothing when pitted against the creative and spontaneous imagination of children left to their own magical meanderings.

I’m in front of this particular CVS store, one that sports those automatic sliding aluminum-and-glass doors, doors that open and close depending upon who or what triggers the electric eye that never blinks.

Only the small girl standing inside near the door has no inkling of what makes these doors open and close, so when she moves near them in order to go outside, they quickly and Star Trekkily whoosh open. She stands looking up at the doors in abject wonder and surprise and backs away to get a better look. This causes the doors to whoosh closed, thus making the little girl in the red dress freeze in her tracks in an attempt to figure things out.

She’s temporarily unsupervised, so at this exact moment, she exists only in her self-made world and must bravely use her own mind without the stiff intervention of adults. Her eyebrows go up, an idea pops like a light bulb above her head, and she decides that she possesses magical powers, just like those magical powers that characters in her storybooks use.

She waves her magic-wand arms toward the doors and they open. Now, she has proof that the Power is hers! She backs off to survey her tiny kingdom, and the doors close again. She jumps up and down, claps her hands and smiles Cheshire-like into the morning air.

The adults around her do not notice her drama, and she tentatively repeats it now and then.

Just as suddenly as it all began, the little red-dress girl is pulled by her adult companion towards the rear of the store, and the magical spell is broken.

Only she and I know that we just witnessed a miracle that nobody else will ever understand quite the way we understand it

© Jim Reed 2010 A.D.

www.jimreedbooks.com

PEOPLE WHO WATCH PEOPLE WATCHING PEOPLE

 Nighttime jazzsinging event at the pub.

Lots of noise and folks eating and laughing and talking, waiting for music to begin, then hoping it will end soon so that eating and laughing and talking can continue.

The room is filled with clanking glasses and cubes and pftt opening fizzbottles and prowlers casting glances around the bar at other prowlers, and melancholy drinkers hunched over their fluids, and expectant fans waiting brighteyed for the next performance, and notetakers watching the people who are watching the people who are being watched.

The best choreography to watch is the unconsciously synchronized movement of the crowd as it wanders bumpercar-fashion around the spaces.

Everybody makes everybody else, if only in mind and fantasy.

These sensual ink-and-paper words will be translated into electrical impulses on cold screens for later publishing.

The jazz moveable feast/moveable fast depends upon the moon and the tide and the hormones.

The youth inside each of us disregards the wrinkling exterior.

We just move with and against gravity till sleeptime insomniatime encroaches

(c) Jim Reed 2010 A.D.

www.jimreedbooks.com