A woman came to the counter thrilled with her find. She stated that she had grown up in Jamaica. When they cleared out her mother’s home there, they “trashed a lot of old books we didn’t want.” Later she realized that they had thrown out a book she had really wanted, The Way of the Eagle, by Ethel M. Dell. They had looked for the book other places, but found it that day! 

A customer came to check out and looked very excited. The gentleman said he had come into the store to buy a Bible dictionary for his studies at the seminary.  He had selected two to buy.  While searching through the religion section, he found a book that, in his words, “made the hair on my arms stand on end.”

It was a book he said he would never expect to find anywhere. The book was big and old and just a little rough. The frontispiece was a drawing of Flavius Josephus. The book was The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus. The customer and his wife were flushed. We all got goose bumps as he repeated the story of his find. No doubt he is still smiling.  (Reported by Kim Carter, part-time employee at Black River Books.) 

A gentleman from Illinois who was working temporarily at Palisades Power Plant, had a day off and was driving around South Haven. He happened to see Black River Books and wondered if possibly there he would find a book he had been trying to find for over 20 years. The book was, “A Treasury of the Familiar,” a book of poetry and short essays and sayings edited by Ralph Woods.

He stated he had found his original copy in someone’s trash along his walk home from school when he was in the 6th grade. He loved reading the book, and it became a treasure to him, “a book of knowledge that got me all through high school; a kind of second Bible,” he said. Then somehow as an adult, he lost the book in a move. He has been looking for it ever since then. Well, you know the rest. He did find his long-sought-after book at Black River Books.

A woman asked if we had any fairy tale books, so we went to the children’s room to look.  She immediately saw “Tales From Hans Andersen,” displayed on a top shelf.  Her eyes filled with tears, and her husband put his arm around her as he handed her the book.  She said, “This is THE very book I had as a little girl and had lost”.

Her husband shared that while perusing our Military and War section, he had found a picture of the submarine he had served on in Scotland in the early 80’s.  “It gave me goose bumps!” he said, “This has been quite a day for us!”

A Grand Haven customer stated that she had been looking for some time for a particular cook book.  Two weeks ago she went to San Francisco and checked out two book stores there, one of which “had tons of cook books,” and she couldn’t find "Simca’s Cuisine".  “Here it is,” she said, when she found it at Black River Books!

A woman brought a tall children’s book with a pink plaid shiny jacket up to the counter.  “This was my favorite book when I was a little girl.”  The book was "The Lonely Doll" by Dare Wright.  I asked if she had come to the store looking for the book.  She said, no, she had just been browsing, and she wandered into the children’s room.  She said she saw the pink jacket and thought, “Could that be it?” and it was.  She said she had looked for the book when her daughter was born, but she couldn’t find it.  “Now I’m buying it for a future grand child.”

“I’m a teacher,” she said, “and I buy a lot of books for my students, but this one is just for me!” 

A gentleman came to the counter with a book to purchase.  “There’s a story behind this book,” he said.  “When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I checked this book out of the library time after time.  I was probably the only one who ever read it.”  The book was about aviation.  “See these pictures?” he said as he opened the book to show me pictures and silhouettes of various planes.  “I would draw these in the margins of my papers in school, and I dreamed of becoming an Air Force pilot one day.  And I DID!” he said.

“But I could never find this book as an adult, because I couldn’t remember the name of it.”  Then his eyes filled with tears, as did mine as he said, “But there it was on your shelf!”

While I was ringing up the book for a customer, a couple came in and went right to the poetry section.  The woman pulled an older green book with still shiny gilt design on the boards.  “This must be it,” she said to her husband.  “It’s green with gold, and she said it was $8.  This book is $8.”  They brought the book, "Poems of Friendship" by John Howard, up to pay.

They told me that their daughter had been in our store a few weeks ago, seen the book, wished she had purchased it, and asked them to look for it.  “Our daughter is going to England to see her male friend.  There is a poem in here she wants to read to him, and she wants to leave this book on his bed when she leaves him to come back home,” the mother said.  “She’s staying with his parents,” she quickly added.”

A woman, who has visited Black River Books often, recently bought a book, "Law in Action: An Anthology of the Law in Literature" for her dear friends' daughter's birthday. The daughter is applying to law schools after having completed a four-year degree in English. 

The customer reminded me that five years ago she began buying classic literature books at our store as birthday gifts for her friends' daughter when the girl decided to major in English in college against her parents' wishes. The parents had worried that their daughter wouldn't be able to use an English major in the real world. Our customer bought the literature books for the young woman anyway and told her to, "follow her dreams!" She reported that the college girl loved her gift books. Now five years and four birthdays later the young woman plans to incorporate her English degree with a law degree, so the title our customer chose for the next birthday gift she felt was just perfect!

"I saw it, and I gasped! An Anna Del Conte (Italian born food writer) cook book, here in South Haven! What a gem of a store."

Joan - not sure where from, but not from South Haven