As a child reared by working parents in a bookstore, the booksellers who worked in that store on Main Street, in the 1960s, seemed as much like family to me as the large group of Weller relatives I encountered on my grandparents’ farm and at family reunions. I was an only child and the array of creative thinkers who worked in the bookstore fascinated me. I would not realize for a few decades what unique and special persons they were and, as I constructed my view of the world, I perceived them as ordinary—a confusing state which would lead to disappointments and eventually, cause me to find purpose and comfort in the tribe of the book people.

My father, Sam Weller, put me to work when I was 10 years old. From then through high school, I enjoyed the conversation and culture of the booksellers who worked in our family’s bookstore—30 or 40 of them. I looked up to my parents’ young employees—boomers and hippies—and their culture, books, art, and music shaped my cultural progress. Their influence on my youth was immense. Many became my friends.

Persons who choose to work in bookstores are good readers. But independent reading makes one unusual as exposure to diverse ideas compels refinement of one’s own. By selecting books, readers curate their own minds and spirits. A reader’s experiences are barely affected by time and space. Culture may blame readers for their independence. This idealist believes the world would be a better place if every belief were so privately achieved.

Since the 1970s, I have worked with hundreds of booksellers. They are my tribe and I love many of them. Now, I am a senior member of our bookselling staff. I really miss my parents and my seniors and mentors but I get new joy and value from younger booksellers. Their reading, taste, and ideas inspire me. I am fortunate to work with smart and curious young persons. Meeting them is my daily pleasure. I am still receiving influence.

Since 2012 we have hosted the (near) monthly Collectors’ Book Salons, not quite 100 in the last decade, with a 29-month hiatus during the COVID mess. So much other craziness coincided with the pandemic that I think it is fair, and will be corroborated by future history books, to refer to this as the post-COVID culture. Yes, C19 is not fully over but as the most dominant of numerous recent sociopolitical factors, COVID will likely define the emergent culture in future history books. Anyhow, maybe it’s drudgery hangover, but our post-COVID salons have been lively.

The May salon will take an Orwellian turn with our own Emma Fox. On May 26th, as always, the last Friday of the month, the Collector’s Chat will be given by former Weller bookseller Emma Fox, who is presently studying the 20th-century political history of America and Britain. She will make a case for reading more George Orwell.

As an essayist, few writers of the Interwar period were as wry and direct as Eric Blair, who published under his nom-de-plume, George Orwell. Orwell’s later novels enormously impacted the ideology of the Cold War and are still widely read, but the more obscure essays he wrote as a down-and-out loner offer social criticisms that we can learn from today. Emma will discuss some of her research on Orwell and why Orwell still matters.

During the June 30th Collectors’ Book Salon, the Collector’s Chat will be given by Ryan Roos, owner of Ryan Roos Rare Books and Americana Museum in Ephraim, Utah, and co-owner of Writ & Vision in Provo.

The title of his presentation will be “First Reports: The Collection and Contextualization of Newspapers as Critical Ephemera.” The presentation will highlight Roos’ journey collecting and preserving early newspapers, and will strive to enhance the audience’s appreciation of this radically unappreciated corner of print history. Ryan will bring and share rare newspaper examples ranging from the American Revolution through the Civil War and settlement of the American West.

Ryan Roos studied philosophy and religious studies at Utah State University. He lives in Manti, Utah with his wife Rachel.

Ah, the bounty, the bounty. Here again I present you with a batch of scarce items, with my usual wide-embracing regard for the breadth of human experience revealed in these volumes.

Celestial Marriage? By Joseph Leslie Broadbent. Printed circa 1927 and sold at PO Box 305 Salt Lake City. Could one shop at the post office box or is this an invitation to mail an order? Our copy bears the rubber stamp of Shepard Book Co. Creased covers. $125

Statesman Winston S. Churchill was a conservative maverick and a respected and avidly collected author. His multi-volume work on World War I, The World Crisis 1911 – 1918 and Aftermath, was issued in series by London’s Butterworth between 1923 and 1931. Full sets of the original volumes are uncommon. We are offering a five volume set, complete in 1929 before the final volume had been published. Our copies, printed between 1923 and 1929, are uniformly bound in navy blue cloth and sans dust jackets. Volumes II and IV are first printings. $1200

An amazing almost perfect leather bound copy of Paul Clay’s 1915 compendium Sound Investing. A few tiny rubs. Topically arranged into 47 chapters. Smart. $1150

Angela Davis cover issue of Life Magazine, September 11, 1970: “The Making of a Fugitive.” I cannot say this hero was here treated fairly. Some bent corners. Iconic photos. $40

A lasting achievement of the Works Progress Administration was their ambitious American Guide Series which employed historians across America to create deep historically bolstered guides to their geographic regions. They didn’t quite realize what a work-horse Vardis Fisher would be and little did they expect to see such a prodigal work on Idaho finished way ahead of schedule in 1937. It was the first State Guide Book published and so well received that it affected the design of subsequent additions. We have a very nice jacketless copy for $250. Front cover embossed with a tree lined lake at sunset in gilt and green.

We have sold many of Dick and Jane readers over the years but I don’t believe I have ever had a better preserved copy of an issue from the 1930s! We recently acquired a nearly perfect copy of the 1936 Basic Pre-Primer, especially riveting for its simple prose: “See Dick. See Dick run.” Forest green and black paper covers with bright orange. Delicate color illustrations on every page. An amazing copy. $325

A perfect 1st edition of the scarce 2009 BYU title Eliza R Snow: The Complete Poetry. A well-made 1333-page volume with index. $400

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According to the National Geographic Society, the Anthropocene is described as a “period of time during which human activities have impacted the environment enough to constitute geological change.” Humans, at least how we know them now, have only really been around for the last 250,000 years, a miniscule blip on earth’s historical timeline. We don’t even take up 1%, and yet the amount of change we have afflicted upon the planet in the short span of our existence will likely outlive even us.

It’s rather frightening to think about the amount of power we hold to “radically reshape” the earth, and how little control of that power we actually have. A heavy and teetering burden to bear, but at least we don’t have to bear it alone. John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed explores what it’s like to be a participant living in the Anthropocene, reviewing all the changes—good and bad—that come with it.

It’s sort of ironic to write a review for a book of reviews (take a shot each time I say review). But since I’m also a participant of the Anthropocene, I find it rather appropriate. In over forty essays, Green reveals his experiences with topics that range from the most mundane to the extraordinary—Dr Pepper to sunsets to the human capacity to wonder. The book is openhearted and vulnerable, rich in a way that will make you both laugh and ache with melancholy. In essence, this book is a love letter to our “human-centered planet,” because to love something means to see it in all its flawed glory. To look at all its broken bits and cracks, and see them filled with golden hope. Alexander pope wrote that “To err is human,” and we cannot hide away from all the erring we have done. Humanity has reshaped and cracked and battered, but we have also created and dreamed and loved. I never claim to know the meaning behind what an author has written, what their intended purpose was, or what they truly wanted to say, but I hope this book was intended to make us blush with warm affection for our frail and temporary selves.

It’s hard to love something as fickle as this planet, this earth bursting with the very worst and best of humanity. There is much to be scared of—the future is uncertain and fragile—but life is so very long, I'd like to try to fall in love with it as best as I can. To quote John Green: “We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.” So pay attention, fall in love with the world, read this book. Or don’t. Read something else, anything you can get your hands on. Watch the sunset, drink Dr Pepper, stay away from Canada geese and CNN. Enjoy being a participant of the Anthropocene. As Maurice Sendak encouraged, “Live your life, live your life, live your life.”

In the age of TikTok and online shopping, book covers have evolved to have eye-catching text enshrined by bright colors, their ultimate goal to entice the quick-scrolling masses. I realized recently that I have been engaging in an act of subconscious retaliation, avoiding books with these brash covers and instead opting for ones I would gladly hang on my walls—books with covers that make it obvious that the artful intention in their design was done to compliment their contents.

Let me provide you with four books I judged by their covers—and was so glad I did, because their contents were stunning, too.

Almond by Sohn Won-Pyung

Paperback $16.99

The beautiful blocks of color coupled with the thin, scraggly writing is what made this cover catch my eye. “This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster. One of the monsters is me.” This book follows Yunjae, a boy born with an inability to feel emotion, and Gon, a boy who feels too many and doesn’t know how to process them. Following their tumultuous relationship, this is a story of friends, enemies, and love.

An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures by Clarice Lispector

Paperback $15.95

The simple yet expressive line drawings of this New Directions edition of An Apprenticeship caught my eye on a recent visit to Powell’s in Portland. I’m so glad I made the shallow, rash judgment to pick it up because this has become one of my new favorite books of all time. Reading this was like having Lispector shine an interrogation lamp on me and on some buried portion of my mind dedicated to understanding life and love, and instead of asking me hard-hitting questions, she tells me the most beautiful and mind-blowing things that even I didn’t know about myself.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Paperback $17.00

It’s kind of a cop-out to say I’d hang this cover on my wall when it features the oil painting Portrait of a Young Woman in White by Jacques-Louis David. Set in New York City in the early 2000s, this book follows an unnamed woman as she tries to find the perfect cocktail of prescription medications and other substances in an attempt to sleep for an entire year. Moshfegh is a master at writing about bleak, dark topics and unlikeable protagonists in a manner that makes it impossible to stop turning the pages.

The Primal Screamer by Nick Blinko

Paperback $15.95

Nick Blinko, best known as the lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist for Rudimentary Peni, wrote and illustrated this short, creepy novel. The cover bears one of Blinko’s ink drawings (and is filled with even better ones) which drew me in enough to buy a copy for myself. Written in the form of a diary kept by a psychiatrist whose patient is getting increasingly involved in the UK anarcho-punk scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s, we bear firsthand witness as the psychiatrist himself slowly descends into madness.

By Mark Oshiro

Hardcover $$19.99

Growing up in the US as an ex-Christian, you tend to realize just how Christian the US is. Into the Light definitely showed me how dangerous Christian evangelicalism in America can be. In this book, Manny has been separated from his sister after attending a Christian conversion therapy-like camp. Oshiro incorporates elements of horror, depression, and anger when referring to the camp. After leaving the camp, Manny is homeless, so he hitchhikes and walks to try to find his sister. During his search, a body is found near the camp and he needs to find out if it’s his sister. This mystery thriller, with a dash of the supernatural, will keep you uneasy but curious about what happens next.

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