I absolutely love Library of America collections and have bought a lot of my favorite classic author’s works through them, as well as explored new genres–recently bought their 1930s-1950s Noir collections because I’ve really wanted to try reading some classic noir!
Last week I was on a business trip and after work hours was checking out some used book stores and found their American Poetry collection–about 2200 pp. but doesn’t look like it because of the page thickness–for about 40% the new price, and had to pull the trigger and buy it (I was big into poetry when I was younger but recently have been getting back into it). Alongside the other vintage sci-fi books I found and bought from the store, I managed to stuff everything into my carry-on shell luggage.
Well, apparently it’s so thick and dense that it got flagged on the scanner at security while returning home at the airport. They made me open the shell and then pulled it out, pulled both volumes out of the slipcase and flipped through them to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything before letting me stuff everything back inside and carry… on.
The funny thing is that I had another stack of books the same thickness in the shell, but they weren’t interested in those because the scanner could go through them–apparently not dense enough!
A woman saw me reading in the hotel and gave me a copy of Hemingway’s *For Whom the Bell Tolls* she had just finished, and that with a Harlan Ellison collection made up the other stack of the same thickness.
Anyway, just kind of a funny story I thought I’d share, and in appreciation of LoA and used bookstores. I was really surprised when my luggage got pulled off to the side to be inspected!
by Corsaer
1 Comment
My checked bag was searched while I wasn’t there and $2000 got stolen by tsa