"It would be nice to find a few more," Botsford said, "but I have to rely mostly on friends. The visitor, freed at last into art, made a random cast across "Haikus for Jews," "An Essay on Calcareous Manures," "Meet Calvin Coolidge," and, yes, "Who's Who in Saudi Arabia: 1978-79," nestled together on the right-hand side of the second shelf, and felt a twangling chord of happiness descend. Look here"-and he gestured toward "All About Guppies" and its neighbor "The Best of Stanley G.Weinbaum." ![]() These are arranged on the John Cage principle. ![]() "And please don't move a book closer to any other book. "Pure coincidence," Botsford said sternly. Here was "The Personality of the Horse," not far from "Breaking Your Horse's Bad Habits." And would a geographer be drawn first to "The Passaic River" or to "Hamtramck Then and Now"? Might not a scholar wearying of "Refrigeration in America" be tempted to skip over to "Father of Air Conditioning"? The visitor pointed out that certain themes appeared to recur. "That's because no one will ever open any of the books," he said. There were to be no joke titles-you had to be rigorous about this-and no work that didn't bear its title on the spine. ![]() "The special special book, the book with an audience of three-I don't know where it's gone." He went on to explain that two broad principles had governed selection of the treasure, which now numbers a hundred and six volumes. "I don't believe there's as much of this kind of publishing anymore," Botsford said to a recent visitor. When he retired, in 1982, writers and editors and artists found themselves mourning "The Handbook of Wrestling Drills," "Creative Insomnia," "What Can I Do with My Juicer?," and the rest, but not to worry: Gardner's Library went with him, carefully boxed up, and can still be visited by its exegetes. He began to pluck out some of the unlikeliest volumes-"The Law and Your Dog," "Septic Tank Practices," "Successful Fund Raising Sermons"-and stashed them in a bookcase in his office, where, slowly gaining company during the sixties and seventies, they became a solace for him and his colleagues. Running his eye week by week down the nonfiction titles, he became impressed by a sweep of unexpected subject matter and the acute seriousness of certain obscure authors-which, when combined, promised extremely low sales. Their owner and curator, the narrow and amiable Botsford, who is eighty-four, was once an editor at this magazine, with an office just inside the anteroom where inbound, not-yet-published books, destined to be sent along to reviewers or cast aside, accrued in teetery stacks. And what better spot to stash "Gardner's Library," as old friends think of it-a unique selection of volumes never to be taken down and opened, never to be discussed, reviewed, collated, or arranged? You can't tell a book by its cover, but in this case you can. The Botsford apartment occupies the upper floors of a handsome brownstone, which means that the elevator hall and the bookcase are part of the place, too. What? Just down the line comes "Pray Your Weight Away" and "Selected Lithuanian Short Stories." The elevator arrives and the thanks are distractedly resumed, but a helpless backward glance discovers "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day," on the shelf below, not far from "Modern Volleyball" and "The Sexual Christian." The door clanks shut, and up (in the little round window) go the host and hostess, who are smiling. Somewhere between the promise to meet again soon and a parting hug, the visitor's gaze falls on a narrow, six-shelf wooden bookcase, there beside the elevator, where, willy-nilly, wandering attention picks up the book titles "Beginning Polo," "Music in Geriatric Care," and "Adultery and Divorce in Calvin's Geneva," all on the same row. A departing dinner guest at the Gardner Botsfords' apartment on Gramercy Park can find himself at a sudden loss for words, right in the middle of the thanks and farewells.
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