Books as Decor: That Says Volumes About Our Society

I was eating lunch at a family-style restaurant the other day, wishing I had something to read. Glancing around, I noticed that the brick-and-dark-wood antique-y decor in the place included books. On a shelf above my table, among 90-year-old Nestle’s EverReady Chocolate tins, I spotted “One World,” by onetime presidential hopeful Wendell L. Willkie. Might be even funnier, I thought, than books by last year’s presidential candidates, so I grabbed it.

But it wouldn’t budge. The thing was actually nailed down. Not only that, it was glued to books on either side.

I walked around to other tables, trying to pick up other books: “Image of Josephine,” by Booth Tarkington, “Kon Tiki,” by the great anthropologist/explorer Thor Heyerdahl, “Dodsworth,” by Sinclair Lewis, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” by Betty Smith, “Joseph in Egypt” by Thomas Mann (next to an antique jar of Mica Axle Grease), the New Testament, and “Nervous Stomach Trouble,” by one Joseph Montague, M.D.

All nailed down. Immobile as moon rocks.

My stomach felt like it needed Dr. Montague. What was this? Novels and textbooks, epics and thrillers, mysteries and adventures and biographies all being used as . . . ambience. What’s more, nestled the among fossilized pepper grinders and shaving brushes, it was apparent that the books were actually intended as nostalgia. Relics from those good ol’ bygone days when we used to crank Victrolas, buy ice from the ice man, and . . . read.

I had thought that the occasional Kurt Vonnegut/James Joyce book barbecue by Moral Majority types, or the “Books near $1” section of Crown were the most ignoble fates writers had to fear. But no--authors can now add to their angst the dread of winding up stapled and glued to the shelves of family restaurants. I asked a nice waitress named Dina if this use of literature bothered her.

“No,” she said, “because at least a lot of people look at them.”

Like maybe they’d be inspired to rush right out after lunch and get a library card?

“Well, no,” said Dina, “but at least the books are not forgotten!”

She was right. Every time a diner bites into a tuna sandwich or shovels down a glob of cherry pie a la mode, he or she might peripherally glimpse “The Story of Pocahontas,” by Shirley Graham, or “The Story of Theodore Roosevelt,” by Winthrop Nelson. The titles become an unforgettable, if purely decorative, part of the dining experience. Kind of like parsley. They might even help inject literature into conversation--something along the lines of, “Gee. Look at that old book.”

I somehow doubted this was the kind of immortality authors dreamily covet. I asked a nice manager named Gloria about it.

“I don’t think it’s weird to use books this way,” she said. “I use books at home just for decoration. They look homey. They’re inexpensive, too! And that’s important to me.”

Right. For a nickel a pound, used bookstores will sell you a box full or two with which you may decorate your living room.

And Gloria made a point I was ill-equipped to argue with. One look at my apartment, and you know I have no sense whatsoever of how to aesthetically arrange books. I select them only on the basis of what’s inside them--expensive or not. Gloria proved that you can not only judge a book by its cover--you can judge a book entirely by its cover.

I ate quickly and got out of there. I drove down to the mall to visit a bookstore and buy something. Felt it was my duty as a writer. On the way, it occurred to me that if somebody really wanted their restaurant to look “homey,” they ought to line the joint with TV sets. (Of course, some places already do--they’re called “sports bars.”) I entered the mall through a major department store and had to pass through the men’s clothing department. Somewhere near the $300 Evan Piccone camel hair jackets, I saw them.

More books.

To the store’s credit, these texts were not nailed down and glued. They were meticulously arranged to lay “casually” about, along with brass candlesticks, framed caricatures from 19th-Century Vanity Fair magazines, tarnished old trophies, and, curiously, a couple of striped high-backed easy chairs. (Missing were the pipe rack, guy with the Yale class ring, and faithful bloodhound at his feet.) It suddenly hit me that there was something more insidious than ambience at work here--these books were meant to subliminally entice customers! You know-- Hmmm, yes, I’m sophisticated and preppy--I’ll shop here!

I approached a nattily dressed young “sales associate” named Aaron. Why the books, I asked.

“It gives it an intelligent look,” said Aaron, a touch sardonically. “You know--the classic look-- woodgrained, varnished , shellacked! Oh, these are mighty fine! We have what we call visual display people, and they go to class and learn how to do this.” He frowned at a dapper mannequin torso, adding, “What they haven’t learned is how to put a decent tie with a decent shirt. I have to change them all the time.”

I located one of these “visual display people,” and tried to ask about the class where they learn to stack old books together, but she wouldn’t speak to me without clearing it with her boss, and her boss wouldn’t clear her to speak to me without clearing it with “downtown,” and “downtown” allegedly was not available.

Not surprising--these profound marketing secrets are understandably closely guarded. Besides, I figured, they were probably afraid that the Book Police might come and get them.

So I went back to peruse the store’s “library,” while spiffily dressed young business types studied nearby ties with scholarly intensity. The library was eclectic: “A Hungry Young Lady” by one Marian Spitzer, “Aurora Dam” by Herman Wouk, “Frontier Stories” by Bret Harte, a volume of Swedish poetry, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy, and “Headhunting in the Solomon Islands Around the Coral Sea,” written by one Caroline Mytinger and published by Macmillan in 1942.

I read its dedication, “To My Mother, Orles MacDowell,” and figured Mom would have been miffed to know that her adventurer daughter braved headhunters only to have her opus end up as a men’s clothing sales device. Better, perhaps, that it be displayed in the women’s department--but then, they don’t display any books there.

Further dismayed, I found a pay phone and called a very well-read friend of mine named Scott, who reveres the printed word. “I can’t believe it,” I said, tugging at my collar. “It smacks of Ray Bradbury’s ‘Farenheit 451!’ ”

“It’s worse than ‘451,’ ” said Scott, coolly. “At least they burned books in ‘451.’ These people don’t even give books credit for being dangerous enough to burn.”

This was small comfort. I hung up and finally hoofed it over to the mall’s B. Dalton, where I inspected a list of the latest best-sellers. At the top was Madonna’s “Sex,” something that I think qualifies for the description “book” only because it has a cover and pages. I decided that some books ought to wind up nailed down and glued.

Oh, and by the way, Gloria, the restaurant manager, told me that the reason they anchor books to the shelves is that “people steal them.”