My eyes slide along the spines and I'm confident there must be a good half dozen I can hoick off the shelf and into the charity box, and yes, look at that big tatty red one with the broken back that I know I have never read. So out it comes and I see that it's called A Tramp Abroad, and I'm just about to drop it in when I remember that Mark Twain wrote that, so I look at it again, because, you know, it's Mark Twain, and I'm thinking it's probably a 20s edition, only it s ays 1881 on the title page, and I'm impressed because that makes it 129 years old, so now I'm looking at it with completely new eyes because the centre of each spread is like a time capsule of smells and textures from the reign of Queen Victoria, and the font is archaic and the drawings are delightful, and who cares if it's falling apart? And then it occurs to me that it might be a British first edition, so I take it over to Google it and inevitably this means I start reading it too, but there's no time, so back on the shelf it goes, and it's not so much that the shelf is as full as it was before, it's like it's fuller than ever.
Phew!
Now look me in the eye and tell me you're different:)
Nope! Can't throw any books away, impossible.
ReplyDeleteLet a book loose on the world?????
ReplyDeleteI'm the same! In undergrad I was a philosophy major and thus I have quite a collection of books (this is not including my fiction collection). Since I graduated I have never once had the desire to open them, and yet keep them for sentimental value. After about 8 years I found the nerve to sell them off, but I think telling myself I could use the money for an e-reader had something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteIf a book does not thrill me, I am likely to donate it to the library. That Mark Twain discovery is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteNancy
N. R. Williams, fantasy author
One day you'll look at that broken spine of a book and be inspired by it.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I know of the perfect storage facility for books where they are loved and given an airing on your behalf and are avaliable at all times if you should want to pet them - ME!
I HAD to part with a couple hundred books to move to NZ - simply was not the space to squeeze them in....I still feel very sad about this three years on...but then there's the whole "possessions weigh us down" argument, as mentioned in the Edward Norton movie "Fight Club" (yes, I am watching all his movies in a row)...so, it's what you can live with or without.
And, at the fear of being most longwinded dull commentor ever, my boxes of books made a jolly good makeshift table for a while!
Heh, no not different at all. Can't bear to part with books. These days I try not to make the sitaution too much worse by downloading and borrowing from the library. Still, the books keep on coming ...
ReplyDeleteOh I can't bear to part with a book either - I'm especially fond of those old musty hardbacks you find in strange little secondhand book shops - I've got quite a collection which you'll never part me from!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. I've been off-line for a week or so, and during that time I...
ReplyDelete...bought some more books.
Ha ha!!! Oh so true. Our house is propped up by (often unread) books. But how can you possibly know what you might want to read tomorrow, or next week or one day in the future? I have a dreadful habbit of buying multiple copies of favourites... If I see a Moomin book looking sad and lost at a car boot sale I just have to give it a good home... It certainly won't feel lonely here!
ReplyDeleteAnd I mean habit of course!
ReplyDeleteThanks, James. I saw a dreadful habbit once, skulking round the back of Bag End.
ReplyDelete