Ourshelves

Photo By Kate Cantrill

Susan Anderson

What do the bookshelves of the young librarian who heads up the team that will select titles for the entire Austin library system hold? Surprisingly, not too many books. But Susan Anderson is a reader. "I read about two to three books a week," she says, "and I'll usually do whatever I can to avoid buying a book."

This is why her petite bookshelves have ample room for photo albums, a boom box, and a thick Complete Book of Baby Names (for reference while writing fiction). And they indicate that Anderson is a librarian through and through: "I borrow, and then I loan." When she does purchase a book, she either donates it to the library system, "or I try to find the perfect person to match with the book." She holds her hands palm side up and moves them up and down as if she's trying to measure which weighs more, person or book.

"I have to read for about 20 minutes before I go to sleep; it's like having a drink." She picks up a copy of one of the two books that she has had since she was a teenager, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña. She flips through the yellowed pages; it appears that they have been through this often. "If I had to buy books to support my habit it would run me, what, $200 a month?"

Her other repeat reader is Edie: American Girl, an oral history about Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick, by Jean Stein and edited by George Plimpton. "I read in an interview that it's a very particular sort of girl who becomes obsessed with Edie Sedgwick." Anderson is not quite sure what this means but suspects this sort of girl is the same sort who might read Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl, by Debra Ollivier, which is Anderson's first book purchase in a long time. As well, she is reading William Gaddis' posthumously published Agapé Agape and Arundhati Roy's controversial essays regarding globalization and terrorism, Power Politics. Along with these are a few advanced reader copies that she receives as part of her job: A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance by Jane Juska, and Family History by Dani Shapiro. "I also have this great book about managing your finances." She holds it out for me to see. "You want to borrow it?"

"Ourshelves" is interested in interesting Austinites' interesting bookshelves. Please e-mail [email protected] if you can pique that interest