While helping out at an craft fair, I moseyed on down to used bookstore down the street, Idle Time Books.

Idle Time tends to be on the expensive side for a used bookstore, but they also more hard to find and even rare books, so you’re paying more for quality often.

They also have a rack outside: paperbacks for a 50 cents and hardbacks for a dollar.

Not that I haven’t bought too many books lately, not that I’m not way behind on my reading (I just last night finished A Dance with Dragons, which predictably ended on a cliffhanger that won’t be resolved for another five years). It’s more that I have a deep, pathological problem.

So, for 50 cents, I bought The Seven Storey Mountain.

Inside the front cover, was an inscription covering the entire page:

Dearest Patti,
This may look like a plain old fashioned paperback book – but is so much more than that. 
   Merton has something very precious, something I can only hope to feel Someday, but something so wonderful that I want to share it with you. And that’s why today – Sept. 19, 1965 – has been so extra-special: being able to share so much with you and Claire – and I know that I am truly the luckiest person ever.
   Gosh – with you for a sister and Claire too –
                    well, I’ve reached the point where words don’t come out right at all.
   So what does come out is Thank you so much, just for being you.
                                                                                                                Much love,
                                                                                                                        Kathy 

Of course, the  forty-sixth anniversary of this inscription will be on Monday.