At the Bookstore, not so far from the till, are the great shelves and stacks of unsorted books. They await the attention of the proprietor, who is, to all intents and purposes, engrossed in his own book.
He will get to them when he gets to them.
These books, they are a different way to search. A more organic, personal search, most shelves or stacks roughly represent an anonymous reader, each one a snapshot of this particular readers education, tastes, beliefs. Find first a shelf or stack that represents your own tastes. See what they read, if you can find 2 or three or four or more that you approve of you might consider this a fair indicator of someone else's discerning judgement and take a chance on something new. Here ideas join in a natural, human way - and in a way you form a kind of friendship, discover a kindred spirit. It is the bookstore in brief, and, given the obtuseness of his taste, it is from here today he finds a few books. The shelf, he sees upon it Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", Nabokov's "Lolita", Diaz's "The Conquest of New Spain" and Speke's "The Discovery of the Source of the Nile", Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams", these he has read, but there are a few he hasn't.
Shulgin, Shulgin, the fever dream of experience and living must wait, there are only so many days in the week, so many days to live and for most of them you should be sober.
This is perhaps regrettable.
In the interm, for these days, he needs a book. A few books, here, "The Messiah" by Bruno Schultz,
an older leather bound collection of lacunae from the Book of Psalms, (stamped "Lux In Arcana", an ex-libris, presumably), "The Iniquity of Vertue", by Anonymous, "An informed and exquisitely detailed account of life in the Madelonnettes Convent", Homer's "Margites", Shakespeare's "Cardenio", Melville's "The Isle of the Cross", Flaccus's "These Things Worth Remembering", in rare translation by Philemon Holland, and now, arms quite filled, the owner, laughing at some page he's just read, sitting up, ever congenial,
"Find everything all right?"
"More than I needed. What are you reading?..."
And the bookseller merely laughs and taps his nose, by signs he won't disclose it, perhaps when he's done he'll share, he has a photographic memory, no need to hold onto books; once read they become a part of his lived experience. They're not forgotten. He'll ask him again when next he comes, there is room for some curiosity here...
The books, wrapped and placed in a paper bag, and he is off.