winterbadger | books redux

A. sent me this link:

Booked Solid

To which I replied:

"Accountant Jennifer Kimball, who is studying for a master's degree in English, and policy analyst Matt Cail, who has a pair of master's degrees, call themselves "huge bibliophiles."

I dunno, they look prety svelte to me! :-)

"Thus their chief requirement when condo shopping two years ago was enough wall space for shelves to hold their books."

Makes sense! :-)

""You think if you keep buying books you will never die until you've read them all," she says. "Of course, that's absurd.""

There's a popular saying in the wargaming community that "I can't die until I've got all my lead [figures] painted, so I'm going to live forever at this rate."

"Washington, with its affluent and educated populace, is a natural habitat for bibliomaniacs, defined by the late British author Sir Hugh Walpole as those "to whom books are like bottles of whiskey to the inebriate, to whom anything that is between covers has a sort of intoxicating savour.""

I plead guilty as charged. :-)

" "Books talk to us. They are like friends. Certainly some of my books are," says Cohen. "

Yep, I entirely agree.

""They actually do more than evoke the story. They evoke the place I read it -- Maine, college, a trip. They become almost a memento of the trip.""

And when the book itself is about a different place, that acquires quite a facinating sort of resonance.

"Her tough-love solution is simple: "Books that you keep are childhood books, historical books, classics. There are two options with the other books: If it's so good that you would tell friends to read it, you pass it along. If it's so awful, you donate it.""

I can see that I shall not be retaining her services under any conditions.

But the people who make furniture out of books are just crazy--if a book is holding up your table, then you can't read it!

In all seriousness, I don't see the point in buying or retaining books I don't intend to read or don't want to be able to consult at a moment's notice if necessary. I don't purge my shleves as often as I ought to, but what kills me about my *parents'* library (and it's really all my dad's) is that most of those books have only come off the shelves on the last 40 years when *I* read them. Some books I could and should dispose of, because I haven't and at this point probably never will read them. But a lot of my books, yes, I haven't read them yet, but I do honestly plan to, and I want them to be there when I have the time and inclination to do so. My dad, I think, keeps books simply--as the organizery person says--as trophies.