Don’t be misled by the title. Even though I talked of empathy yesterday, I don’t intend to write today about the opposite, curiosity. I’m going to tell you about real-life eccentrics that have nothing to do with creative writing but they do with books – and we have a laugh, what the heck, after all it’s summer, at least in this hemisphere – if you can call that thing outside my German window “summer”.
The point is, eBay offers the possibility to bid on J. D. Salinger’s toilet. Seriously. Beware mysophobics: this article is intended for real mythomaniacs, as it comes -quote- “uncleaned” -unqoute-. So if you have a million dollars and you don’t know what to do with it, you can donate it to the workshop or -almost literally- throw it down the toilet, whatever you see fit.
But while you think about what to do with your money, others have already decided what to do with their books – though I’ll tell you that tomorrow.
And you, what memorabilia from selected authors do you treasure? Personally, the weirdest thing I remember doing was after the death of Frank McCourt, whom I had not read yet. As soon as I read about his demise, I decided to buy Angela’s Ashes, and it turned out that a seller on Amazon was selling an autographed copy for very little, so I got it before it revalued. By the way, I loved the book. But apart from a few signed copies, I don’t think I own anything too strange. Do you?