I love books. Many, many books. But I don’t love all books. (For examples, see: The Martian; Dhalgren; Rich Dad, Poor Dad; and any cat-focused books found at cash registers.) Still, I’ve always assumed there was someone for every book; right now, I would imagine there’s a booming business in Mein Kampf among many of the president’s supporters who show up at rallies (if I also assumed they read books).

But in all the glories I found today in the four-story book mecca known as Powell’s Books in Portland, I came across many, many books of arcana that I can’t imagine anyone, anywhere, will ever need.

No, not just the outdated and therefore uselessly old books, such as science books or medical books now proved wrong; they might be a curiosity. But what need does the world have, exactly, for “Game of Draughts” (below), which recounts 24 tournaments of checkers that took place across the British Isle in 1905? By “recounts,” I mean that literally — it is a book almost entirely composed of columns of numbers. While I have no need of this book, someone at the time evidently did; the pages are filled with pencil notations. But I can’t imagine that Powell’s will ever ever ever sell this book. I almost bought it out of pity, the way one would adopt the one-legged dog who’s had both eyes poked out — but even then I didn’t buy it. If you’re interested, I’m told that every book of Powell’s is on their website for sale. Now’s your change. It’s $9.95.

 

 

This book, astoundingly, was not the only such book from that golden era of hard-fought checkers games. It turns out that the War of 1812 was not the last time that Britain fought the United States; no, there was also the 1905 war of checkers between the two great nations. This book too contains pages upon pages of columns of numbers.

 

Although as a people we’ve lost our excitement for checkers, here is one consolation: The spine serves to remind us that whose who came before us were not wiser than we.

Finally, here is a more recent book that I can’t imagine wanting, although it did spur thoughts toward many sequels and, indeed, a full potential series, with titles like: “How to Drink Water from a Glass,” “How to Look Out Your Left Eye,” and “How to Not Buy Useless Books No Matter How Sorry You Feel for them.”

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