More on books

[siercia]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

And yes, it is about love of reading vs. love of books as an object. Now, unlike dollraves, I actually love books as physical objects. prunesnprisms and I have had this discussion before - I love the act of sitting with a book, holding it my hands, turning the pages. I've never been able to embrace books in electronic format (although, as an aside, if you've not checked out Daily Lit, you should. A snippet of a book e-mailed to you each day, in totally coffee break sized chunks.) I've tried audio books, but I have trouble with them. My mind wanders and I miss huge chunks. They don't fit well into the small spaces of life into which I find that I can slide a few pages of the current book. But, as much as I love books and reading, I'm less and less enchanted with owning books.

My question came from a spark of a thought I had early yesterday when I was thinking thinking about shifting books. My logic brain said to me, "You know, you on't need to keep those two entire shelves of Stephen King books, you know" My lizard brain reacted in horror - "But I LOVE STEPHEN KING!" The first brain rolled its eyes at my lizard brain. "Yeah, and any single one of those books, you can find at the library. ANY ONE OF THEM. Hello, wildly popular modern writer? Are you on crack, lizard brain?" And I thought to myself, you know, that's true. There's a few I'd not get rid of, but the ironic reality here is that I don't even own a lot of my true favorites - I read them when I was a teenager off my mom's bookshelves, and never bought copies of my own. Many of the ones I have I read when I got them and have not opened again. But you see what prompted the question. And of course, it's true for nearly every other book on my shelves. I bet easily 95% of them could be found at the library, or through ILL. I didn't have a lot of time to post yesterday, so it was a weirdly brief pop up question, I realize.



I've long claimed to not understand the concept of collecting, at least, when they are things of no utility beyond decoration, or sometimes even just ownership. No that I'd ever criticize or think less of someone because they love Pez dispensers or teddy bears or obscure electronic gizmos from the 50s, or anything of the other eleventy billion things people collect (well, unless they live in my house, sorry, Wiley), but I just don't get it on some core level. I did for a while, and have been known to get caught up in fads of stuff (beanie babies, anyone?), but the older and more boring I get, the less and less I get it.

The few things I can be said to collect (books, yarn, stitching notions like cloth and floss) are all things that ultimately have a use. The conflict comes when I have them, but I'm no longer using them. For the stitching stuff and the yarn, that's often less of a big deal. I go through the collections of stuff occasionally, weed out the stuff I don't want and throw it in a bag for goodwill. (Speaking of, do any of my stitching friends have a use for an ~ 6inch square Q-snap frame?)

But books, books are different. Because they're out in public, displayed proudly for visitors to thumb through and notice. Because as much I can shun the notion that what you owns says something about you (thanks, marketers), I can't shake clinging to that very idea about books. I know I do it, measure people by their bookshelves. Someone who comes and browses my bookshelves will find a history buff, a feminist, an intellectual (assuming that they assume I've read them all - and I'm probably at 90%). They'd know I love Stephen King, and Bill Bryson, and Sue Grafton. That I'm a fan of historical novels, mystery stories, food writing, underdogs. All without my saying a word.

I feel like my identity is somehow bound up in the books on my shelf, particularly those that come from past me's, ones that only exist in my head now, instead of as a real entity standing in front of people. Many of them are from college and reflect that part of my personality that I still cling to, even though I get farther away from it every day. I a way, letting go of those books means letting go of the incarnation of myself that felt the most true, or at least the one I'd like to think was the most true, even if it probably wasn't.

So I sit, torn between waiting to shed more of the cruft in my life, like books I will never read again not share with friends or Widget. That if I were going to move every year for the rest of my life would be packed and unpacked but never opened, because I can't shake the feeling that if I give them away, I'll be giving a little piece of myself away with them. Sometimes I hate my brain.

Thanks for listening to me blather, if you made it this far.

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

As it happens, the books I cannot bear to get rid of nearly all date from pre-20-years-old. They say something about me that's hard to get hold of anymore.

a ghost of you

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

what do you think they say?

Re: a ghost of you

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

They are all versions of me--points in time. each is as valid as the other. I am not two dimensional. nor are most of us.

[bigmeanie.livejournal.com]

I understand. I have 1100+ books in storage (no room in the house) that I only recently decided to cull through and see if there is anything that my students might enjoy.

[mermil.livejournal.com]

When you wrote, "I feel like my identity is somehow bound up in the books on my shelf," it was like hearing an echo in my brain-- I feel the exact same way. If you truly want to know who I am, look at all of my books-- there will be your answer.

you're not the only one, mermil!

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

It's so true. One of the first things I look at when I visit someone's house for the first time, is what books they have. It gives me points of connection, flickers of understanding, with someone I may be just getting to know. Heck, I routinely checkout my fellow bibliophiles collections and have an excel sheet tracking what's out on IFL (inter-friend-loan?). It's currency in our world - cool books, offbeat ones, silly ones, absorbing ones. I accidentally discovered the sex of a friend's unborn baby (kept hidden to keep mom from going bannanas) by reading a dedication in a book.

I can also understand what prunes means - I have some old anthropology books that I just can't quite get rid of, even though they're a reminder of both a happy and then deeply unhappy time in my life. Perhaps, with someone like King, you could jettison all but your absolute favorites, and make room for some of your true favorites that you never bought. (and nosy me, now I want to know what those are!)

It's probably a good thing that Nav's book habits are almost completely opposite mine - once she reads something, unless it's truly profound, off it goes to ebay, booksfree, or somewhere else. Probably the only thing that has enabled us to remain living in our apartment while respecting our mutual agreement that the walls should not all be covered by bookshelves. For me at least, there's a thin but perceptible line when you have so many books that you can't remember where the one you want is, and they become background rather than cherished objects. Or maybe that's just reason to have ReaderWare (http://www.readerware.com).

gone for good

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

When you say they're gone for good, are these books that are out of print and unfindable? Or just the sheer cost of replacing the number of books you really wished you'd kept?

Re: gone for good

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

That's what gives me pause about getting rid of lesser known books - the spectre of them going out of print at some point.

Re: gone for good

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

congrats on the upcoming package!

I definitely will - I think the best bet is to just discard books that you're middling to cool about, or those that are so popular you won't have trouble finding them in libraries.

I understand what you mean about books as part of a shared experience. A dear friend of mine has a huge collection of books from his deceased father, and that's almost all he has left from him.

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

Between halleyscomet and I, we have a reasonably large collection of books. We try not to keep them all in one place, rather preferring to have them scattered throughout the house in the places where they will be read and appreciated most. Cookbooks in the kitchen, personal interests specific to each of us in our respective office space, stuff that other people would enjoy sitting down with in the livingroom. The household rule has become; "Is this a book you will re-read? Keep it. Is this a book that's likely to be hard to find again" Keep it. Is this something you don't care too much about or would likely never re-read? Take it to a library or used store and get rid of it." For the most part, this rule has worked well. We've gotten some tax deductions for the books donated to libraries. Store credits from used bookstores have been used to buy other books, a form of book&money recycling.

Most of what we keep is the stuff where a specific book, not just that story, but that physical object in particular, has meaning. I have a couple very battered old books that get re-read once every few years. They are stories I love and they always bring up reminders of the time in my life when I first encountered that story. The physical object is like an old friend. In the case of other books, its the story that carries the memories, so what form it is in doesn't matter, I have in fact been slowly replacing some old favorites in paperback with sturdier hardcovers meant to last many years, some of which combine multiple volumes of a series into one binding. (See my amazon list and you will note a large number of Gregg Press hardcover editions of works by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I love my old paperback copies of the series of books, even if it gets a bit preachy at times, The paperbacks are old and getting very worn.)

In any case, I hear you. Sometimes its about the story. Sometimes its about that specific physical object. Sometimes its about what other people know about you from browsing through your bookshelves. Sometimes its just about being able to hold on to that tenuous link to a person you once were.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I don't like getting rid of books. I only do it with books I will really never read (or read again), or books I have obtained nicer copies of (assuming I can then bear to get rid of the old copy).

I can't resist pointing out that books are excellent insulation, so if you put your bookshelves on outside walls, or have boxes of books in the attic, you're saving money!