Found inside:

Found inside:

Donated, with analysis, by librarian lara7:

These books were donated to the library in the same batch.

Now, an inscribed Mckuen is nothing out of the ordinary, but check this: One is TO Jim, one is FROM Jim. Oddly, the handwriting even looks the same. The donation raises all sorts of questions. Here's my theory:

Sue gives new boyfriend Jim Stanyan Street (copyright 1966), and he is touched. In the words of Diane Keaton in Sleeper, "That's so McKuen". Jim and Sue break up a few months later, but he keeps this book as a memento of (to quote page 49):

"the smell of rooms-
where you have been."

Then, years later, being a sensitive Aquarian man, he thinks, "Hmm. Chicks dig McKuen" and gives Lonesome Cities (copyright 1968) to Annie for their anniversary. She is so touched that they eventually cohabitate and/or marry.

Then, 5 years later, when preparing for their first garage sale, Annie finds Sue's gift in the milk crate of books from Jim's bachelor apt. and realizes Jim is an uncreative SOB who lifted Sue's McKuen m.o. to woo Annie. They have a tremendous fight, Annie throws both volumes at Jim in a rage. Luckily, the flying volumes miss Jim and land behind the record shelves, where they languish unnoticed for 29 years, much like Jim's collection of Leonard Cohen LPs.

The books are found only when Jim and Annie start packing to relocate all their stuff to a condo in Redmond in 2002, and they laugh and say "Rod McKuen? Good God, how high were we?" And the library gets another shopping bag of donations.