Let's Hear It for Levenger!

Levenger opened a store in a mall near my home. "It's like my old catalog came to life!" I told my aunt later, absolutely thrilled with my new purchase: Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. She just shook her head and tsked tsked at the current price for hardback books. Well, why not? I checked it out of the public library three times. I love the poetic entries and kept coming back to them. So I decided to buy it for myself to read at leisure. (I always have at least six books going at once. People think I'm odd, but that's the way I've always been.) One day I will read Thomas Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson and Levenger CEO Steve Leveen's The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, which a couple of people in various book groups suggested reading.

Levenger has been one of my favorite catalogs for years. I spent quite a few minutes admiring everything in the store, and for the most part I could navigate the aisles. The store also sold a lot of things with cartoons from The New Yorker, which reminded me of a former co-worker and our shared longtime interest in the magazine. I still have a very durable accordion file of many colors that is useful, and my oak editor's desk has been great for reference books and more than a few proofreading projects. I still have the cobalt-blue fountain pen (with matching blue ink!) that my aunt gave me for Christmas one year, but it was too difficult to hold while writing. All these years later, I still haven't given up on using it. Luckily I didn't have a case of leather binder envy.

Many of the items are for high-powered CEOs and other executives' offices. At this late date I won't attain that professional stature, but Levenger always makes you feel like you are there already.