Poached!

I was upset the other day by something that could happen all the time to me, but which luckily happens almost never. I had reserved a couple of books by Harry Crews, an author of note. His books are dark, funny and disturbing. I'd read one of his books a while back, and was eager for more. Finally I got back to him (after reading a number of other books that I was also very eager for), and really liked "Feast Of Snakes".

The Los Angeles Public Library does not have a lot of Crews' books. For many of them, only one copy is in the system and it is a reference copy at the main branch downtown.The others will have, at best, one copy that can actually be checked out. I guess that shows their estimate of what the demand is for Crews' work here. They maybe aren't so far off. He's not JK Rowling. It would be nice if they had a couple copies of each of his books for a city of millions.

I had finished the one book, and was about to get started on the other- "Grits And Blood" - but I had to renew it first. I'd check it and the other out at the same time, and I hadn't managed to finish that in less than three weeks. I found, sickeningly enough, that while I could renew the one I'd finished (just so that I wouldn't have to go to the library that day), I could not renew the one I had yet to read. Incredibly, a claim had been made on it!

I was very displeased. The thought that I'd exceeded the time period I knew was all I could count on hardly crossed my mind, nor did the fact that renewing books I was done with as an act of convenience made me part of the problem. What mattered in my highly emotional state was that I would have to return this book I really wanted to read in hours. I did entertain the idea of reading it all night long and on into the next day in a bid to finish it in time, but I came to my senses.

Indeed, upon returning the books, I found some others that I was just as excited about. One of them turned out to be the followup to a book I hadn't read yet, which is a whole other kettle of fish. The other, a heavily fictionalized (or so I understand) novel about a soccer coach's tenure with a particular team in England touched on my present interest in the game and has held me with some fine writing, so I think I'll be just fine until I can get that Crews book back.