One of the coolest things about buying other people's libraries is that the collection of books gives you an incomplete view of who they are, enough to pique your interest, but full of holes that you have to guess at. It's like finding the third page of a love letter and having to make up the rest of the story.
Usually, we will at least have met the person selling the books, and that solves part of the mystery. But yesterday, we bought a collection of a few hundred books from an estate and never got to meet the person who they belonged to. Judging from the books, however, I can tell you this: he was really into chess, Jesus, and science, possibly in that order. Which gives us an indication of this man's character: he was an intense thinker, a private person who enjoyed the privacy of a deeply theoretical book, and if he was around other people, it was to play chess. As a side note, I was told that this person was a man, but would have assumed the same. And that part about him being at all social. I actually doubt it, having seen the computerized chess board that he owned.
This composite sketch isn't so strange. We've all known someone who could have fit the description, or at least come close. What makes it more interesting are the random books on drug harvesting (marijuana, and some harder chemical recipes) and the history of white supremacy.
Who was this guy?
In any case, there are now plenty of books on chess, on Jesus and his history within both Christian and Jewish theology, and on cutting edge science and math at Chop Suey. Some on marijuana. Oh, and none on White Supremacy.
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