What is it about writing? How can you take nine words that make a person simply raise an eyebrow, rearrange them, punctuate them differently, and now have someone shiver with emotional power? What is that? They are only words on a page.

   Why is it that one horror story by one writer has your mind drifting to those new shoes you just bought or whether or not your going to go ahead and get that new chainsaw even though you can borrow your buddies when you need it. And another story, say, by the King, Stephen that is, forces you to wait until the living room is full of thick smoke before you realize that you’re burning the last piece of left-over pizza for dinner.

   I don’t exactly know, but we all know it’s there. It’s the power. The power in the written word. I think of Poe, I think of Stoker, I think of Shelly, of Lee, of Fitzgerald, of Shakespeare, dear, dear Shakespeare. All of these affect us, move us, even shatter us in some cases. Why?

   I was working at a guitar shop, years ago. We had a break in our work, so I and another guy went across the street to this, um…well…ok, white trash establishment. There, I said it and I’m proud. Anyway, it was a…well it’s a little hard to describe. You might call it a garage–antique–burger & bagel–junk yard–jewelry store–pet care–non-accredited out patient dental hygiene college–plumbing supply place…sort of. But I digress.

   Ok, so. I bought it. Without knowing what it was about, never even hearing of the author. When I got home, I casually lifted the hard, dark, and faded cover, opening it to the first page. The blank white inside of the cover to the left had some scribbling in pen and pencil, a couple of names written in cursive, and three finished games of tic-tac-toe. The opposite first page read, “Women, by Booth Tarkington.” It had some sort of crest stamped in the middle of it, and at the bottom, it had, “Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1925.” When I turned the page, on the right-hand side it had the table of contents, and on the left-hand side, a small paragraph listing the copyright, date, author, press, and the city and state as usual.

   I groaned when I saw how old it was. “What the hell,” I muttered, and proceded to read. It started out well enough. After some description, told of three women walking home after a club meeting, talking. As I read, I began to get more interested. Then intrigued. Then fascinated, then absorbed, then riveted. And eventually, moved to the point of tears streaming down my face as I bathed myself in the rich pathos of this unforgettable novel. Now I’m pretty much all guy. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I may be a little on the burly, insensitive, and even slightly brutish side. But this book, written in nineteen twenty-five was, and is to date, the most emotionally moving book I have ever read. And the writing is fluent and gyroscopic in its flow upon the page. With the exception of first, the Bible, and second, most of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, truly, reading this novel was an experience that surpasses any artistic encounter of the written word with which I have been blessed.

   It has been fifteen or so years since I read “Women.” And now, as I sit here writing this column, I am stunned to read in it, something that I had never seen before. When I bought the book, I wasn’t the book worshiper that I am today. So it’s not surprising to me that I never noticed it until now.

   I’m not a collector. I’m only a reader. But I had the fortune of buying the greatest book I have ever read for twenty-five cents.

   And on top of that, it gives me a particular thrill while sitting here, writing a weekly column on my website fifteen years later, that I would discover that my chance purchase at a yard sale was made even more special with these two words found below the little fine print copyright paragraph that sits all by itself upon the lone blank page at the beginning: First Edition.