Book Rescue On 116th Street

Walking up 7th Avenue toward 116th Street in Harlem, in front of the First Corinthian Baptist Church (its pastor, Michael Walrond, unsuccessfully ran against congressman Charles Rangel this year), I found, face down, a copy of a paperback immigrant novel. The book, If Today Be Sweet, was written by a novelist and professor of creative writing and journalism, Thrity Umrigar, originally from India. She is now living in the United States.

I picked the book up and tucked it between two church pillars thinking that the book had been left behind after a recent book fair at the church and that someone would find it. Twenty-four hours later, the book was still where I had placed it. So I decided to keep it.

Browsing through it, I found on the inside back cover, an inscription, handwritten in ink and dated
"1/18/08 09!"

"Barack Obama

'Our arts, our culture, our sciences are part of what make [sic] America special. And I plan to invite those things into the White House.'--Meet the Press, 2008."


If I never get around to reading this novel, that inscription alone was worth the effort to rescue this book from some landfill.