Books & Memories is a secondhand book store in Syracuse, New York, with a terrible name and dead web site.
2600 James St
Syracuse, NY 13206-2842
(315) 434-9268

But because visiting it made me enormously happy, I’ll describe it here, so that you may believe, despite the inability to click on it.

Like any good independently owned store, Books & Memories’ ramshackle appearance is part of its appeal — the piano, the oversized glass-display checkout counter, the vintage magazines. The store sprawls out from its center to satisfying library stacks with plenty of comfortable nooks.

It doesn’t take long to discern that “discount” is not shorthand for “junk.” True, the “97-cent” shelf does offer books like, “68 Reasons the Internet is Cool.” But then I spied Updike. And Jane Hamilton’s “The Book of Ruth.” And Margaret Atwood. On the new release shelf, I bought a copy of Caitlin Macy’s short-story collection, “Spoiled,” for $9 instead of the listed $24, as well as Nam Le’s “The Boat,” in paperback, for $5.

Happy Happy Joy Joy?

Yes, I found books I know I will love at “unbelievable prices!” But if you’re skeptical that Books & Memories would make you equally happy were you to visit, then you’re onto the links to come.

My favorite money blog Get Rich Slowly (despite its recent less attractive redesign) just ran a riff on the links between expense and happiness based on a Greg Tierney’s New York Times Lab column, which was in turn based on a reader survey about the subject by Geoffrey Miller, U of M professor and author of  “Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior.

(Whew.)

Readers’ Biggest Expenses included kids, most cars, and boats. Their Most Happy lists included booze, meals with friends, hobbies, education, and charity. What overlapped? Homes, education, travel, electronics, and certain vehicles.

Here’s my Venn diagram of expense versus happiness. Childcare, food, kids and travel overlap both categories. So not surprisingly, my trip to Books & Memories, which was a kid-free trip to visit family and happen upon some books as well, is a ding ding on my happiness meter.

If your definition of “travel” does not include “being able to leave the house alone,” well, I’d be surprised if you’d read this far.

There’s some artifice to these lists, naturally, as it’s hard to reconcile past and future time, whether the “lack” of something would influence our happiness, and the shifting interpretations of happiness. For example, “education” doesn’t top my list of things that make me happy now, but I’m happy to have had it. My car doesn’t make me “happy,” but I’m usually much unhappier when it’s in the shop.

Fresh from picnics, parades, and pie, what tops your lists?

I just hope your “expenses” column doesn’t include an emergency trip to deal with the fallout from an exploding Toot & Twirl.

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Tags:   happiness · money psychology · Venn diagram2 Comments