In August 1929, Gustav Weller decided selling used books would be better than selling used mattresses and furniture. That store, Zions Books, was on 100 South where City Creek Center currently stands. Five locations, a couple of names, and 93 years later, Wellers and its intelligent, intrepid booksellers are still selling books. To commemorate our 93 years, I thought I’d recap some of our favorite and bestselling books.

Men to Match My Mountains by Irving Stone was a favorite of Sam Weller’s. Sam enjoyed Western Americana and good storytelling. This book has both. Speaking of storytelling, Sam loved to recollect buying the book for the first time from the publisher’s sales representative. The rep made his pitch and Sam decided to order a big number so he said he’d take 25. The rep said, “25! I’m sending you that many review copies, go higher!” Over the years Sam sold thousands of copies.

Sam also held Beyond the Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stegner in high esteem. He sold countless Stegner books over the years and forged a relationship with Stegner that lasted until the author’s untimely death. In many ways, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian is as relevant today as it was when it was published. Sam’s not here to tell you to read it, so I will.

Pogo by Walt Kelly was a favorite of Lila Weller. It was a comic strip published in newspapers across the country and was collected into books. Kelly’s satire was priceless and has worked its way into American popular culture so thoroughly that people don’t always know where certain quotes came from. If you’ve ever said, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” or a variation thereof, you’ve quoted Pogo. We have a few second hand books for sale right now that were on the shelves in Sam and Lila’s homes.

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts is one of the titles Tony Weller considers seminal in his development as a human being. It was recommended to him in his youth by a fellow bookseller. The Book delves into the struggles of personal identity (ego) and separation of self from others. This is a very basic description of a book that changed many lives over the years with its playful, poetic language and clear insights. The number of copies sold by Tony alone would attest to that.

The postmodern epic Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon is part of the canon of the later 20th century. It’s so transgressive and difficult in so many ways that the Pulitzer Prize board chose not to make an award for fiction in 1974 rather than give it to the judges’ choice, Gravity’s Rainbow. When Tony was first getting to know me he saw this book on my shelves and decided I was a very interesting person. Through the years we’ve sold a lot of copies of Gravity’s Rainbow to adventurous readers. We’re also re-reading it together currently for our “story time” book.

What’s our bestselling book of all time? I wish I could tell you that. The move to a computerized inventory in the 1990s and the systems changes after that don’t allow me to access such data. I can say the bestselling books aren’t always favorites of the Weller family. The booksellers of Wellers have their own taste and their own stories about the books they recommend. Those books frequently become store bestsellers as well. It’s part of what makes our store’s selection so intriguing and diverse. Come and look at our staff’s current recommendations. You’ll find a plethora of well-curated titles to keep you busy reading this month and beyond. And you just might find a book that will change your life.

Our Rare Book Department showcases all types of collectible items on paper. Recently we acquired the first three numbers of Black Cat Comics’ Salt City Strangers: Utah’s Most Frickin’ Awesomest Heroes by Chris Hoffman, Josh Butterfield, Jeremy Gates and Mark Avo, with layouts, finishing, lettering, pencils, inking and covers by Sam Rodriguez, Soo D. Lee, M. Woods, Toni Doya and Emmanuel Ordaz. These 2013/2014 comics are rather hard to locate today. Copy number 1 is initialed by Chris Hoffman over “1/3”. $100

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Manifest Destiny had many meanings to the Europeans who made their new home in America; to some it meant harvesting the treasures that lay in wait in this new land. In In Whose Ruins, Alicia Puglionesi examines myths created by whites about Manifest Destiny by looking at four regions of the country where they drew literal power from the landscape and symbolic power from history. “To sooth the conscience of fortune-seekers who left a trail of fire, flood and ghosts, their stories affirmed that this was indeed the destined course of history.” As many of these areas are not all that well known now, and some have fallen into ruin, Puglionesi brings to life the myths surrounding them in this well-researched history, enlivening it with well-developed historical characters.

When early explorers and farmers came across the great structures of the Mound Builders, they didn’t quite know what to make of them. Their dismissive beliefs of this earlier civilization justified—in their own eyes—taking lands of the native dwellers, for obviously they were not the first inhabitants. Puglionesi uses the example of Henry Schoolcraft to explain the explorer’s myths of the Mound Builders. After a few professional failures, Schoolcraft hoped to redeem himself through his role as an Indian Officer and by recording and publishing Native myths. He married into a Native family, first truly loving his highly-schooled wife, but later forcing his white person’s views onto her beliefs and writings.

Promoters of the early oil industry also found their power in the indigenous past. Spiritualist mediums claimed to channel Native American spirits from the afterlife who ostensibly told them where to drill for profitable wells. They also used and protected this oil for healing purposes.

By the early 1900s, businessmen envisioned a new and spectacular source of energy: hydroelectric power. Eventually, nearly every river was damned to support this end (an exception was the Yellowstone). As the waters backed up, they displaced the people living by them, disrupting their lands and lives.

The book ends in the mythical landscape of the American Southwest. As the home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, this remote land would soon become the most radioactive place in the United States. In terms of national defense, the race to develop new power meant secrecy and risks in development of a new weapon and power source. It was also the land of the Navajos, Pueblos and Hopis. The land had always been a lure for its beauty and healthy environment. The Natives soon learned to eke out a living by selling their crafts, and many of the scientists at Los Alamos soon became enamored of their pottery.

In Whose Ruins is an amazing work of revisionist history that deals with the strange twists and tales of those that reaped the rewards of the land they conquered and how they built a world of myth surrounding that conquest.

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