Dumpster dive

Garage sale scoops are great, second hand and thrift store finds can be the ultimate in scores but sweet, sweet treasures can be found in dumpsters all around town at the best price of all…free.

I work for a library system that is situated in the midst of a book desert. It makes many of our older books all the more precious and yet at the same time a commodity that few seem to collect or even bother to borrow. Thanks to that excess we been finding ourselves weeding lately at a furious rate. On top of that we get to deal with donations, mostly a motley mix of titles, passed along to us from down-sizers and estates. Many of the books we get are old, worn and out of date and not even remotely attractive. Due to that many of them find their way into the recycling bins out back. Sometimes, though, a real treasure slips through and that’s the crux of this wee tale.

I didn’t set out to dumpster dive that day nor was I out looking for any second hand books to take home. The fact of the matter was I had pretty much been ignoring the recent onslaught of donations that had been coming through. Not only were we halting donations here at the branch but system wide as well so used books were finding their way out of the branch almost as fast as they were coming in. Used books are important to a number of my patrons but I felt it wasn't doing me any good to be peevish about the new policy. The bigger matter at hand was that my bookshelves at home were getting pretty tight and more used books was just not going to do if I wanted to have a happy life with my partner.

So on that particular day I was walking the parameter of the branch and was pretty much oblivious to the lure of used books. I picking up trash, taking a look at my facility from the outside. The city pool next door had land sale business going on that day due to the high heat and the spillover from that crowd was to be expected inside my branch soon. On top of all that the late afternoon sky was taking on a threatening look, something I had come to expect here on the high plains in July.

With paper trash in hand I opened up the door to the dumpster area and thought, yeah, now’s the time to close up the lids. Peeking in the bin, just to see what I could see, my eyes were greeted with a bounty of books, not just library discards but box upon box of recently dumped donations. I was happy beyond measure as I was practically swimming in tons of cool stuff. One book in particular that swam to the top of the heap really blew me away: Musk, Hashish and Blood by Hector France (privately printed by the Panurge Press, NY). By rights it shouldn’t have stood out because there was no dust jacket on it to make it pop. It had a curious embossed leather cover, bright gold lettering and was in pretty decent shape considering the quality of the books it was hanging out with. One great thing about it was its condition, to be sure, but what truly set it apart was that it was a limited edition (copy number 1354) reprint of the 1900 edition, with, alas, no illustrations .

Good librarian that I am I recently went on the AbeBooks.com site and saw a wide number of different copies and editions of the title so I now know that the book isn’t as rare and obscure as I thought it was. The paper cover posted above, from a pulp paperback edition, should make that clear enough. All the same in some circles it is considered a lost classic and from my quick perusal of the text I certainly agree. The language is florid, very 19^th century. The writing tight and dense, and the chapters that I skimmed let me know right away that this was definitely a man’s adventure book. It was Victorian to the bone and was filled with travelogue delights, but what made it stand out was the sheer volume of raw sex, violence and the very open and explicit use of hashish and kef, which made it a very racy volume for it's time, indeed.

Now, due to the writing style I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this title to just anyone but if you are looking for tales of derring-do set in the Algerian desert in times long ago then seek this one out. In fact I have saved you a step: the book is in its entirety, with illustrations, below.

Entertainment for mota heads is not necessarily limited to a large bowl of Cheetos, Ren and Stimpy cartoons and colorful sunsets. We like to read, too. So fluff up your Oriental pillows, pack up a hooka bowl with your favorite water hash and enjoy!

Salud!

For those interested in reading the book in it's entirety:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510020570662;view=1up;seq=1

AbeBooks.com listings of the title I was lucky enough to find:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=panurge+press+&sortby=17&tn=musk+hashish+blood