My friend Keetha used to say "Books are somehow more personal to me than clothes." She writes of her reluctance to part with any book, no matter how old, how read or unread---even the ones she had tried repeatedly to read and lost interest or just downright disliked. I find myself echoing her quote above, for I’ve had a lifelong Love Affair with books---all kinds.
I grab them up and covet them and browse shelves and stacks and tables at stores and sales, charity shops, people’s curbstones of set-out discards. No yard sale goes unscanned as we pass, for the piles and boxes of books yield treasures untold. And VERY few of my own can I ever part with. I’ll share, the borrowers will forget, and only I will have a small pang (or a lingering one---re: the childhood Nancy Drews) for the losing of them. I remember about three titles in all my reading history which I’ve actually walked to the trashcan and hurled them in.
And hurl I did, for only the most disgusting or Pure-D boring bear such treatment, and then, they have to go way over the top on either front, and those certainly did, thus the fling amongst the coffee-grounds and eggshells which buried the offenders and contaminated them beyond reprieve.
I do not believe that the books vs. clothes on the popularity scale is actually CAUSED by my own dislike of shopping---whether occasioned by the stern sales-ladies tsk-tsk sympathy for my Mother’s having been saddled with such a chunky little dumpling to buy garments for, or simply that I don’t care much WHAT I wear, so long as it’s clean and comfortable and modest as well as being reasonably appropriate for the occasion.
But oh, BOOKS!!! I like them---heavy, thin, wordy, spare, old and tattered, filled with margin-notes and highlighting, inscribed, autographed, well-read, or with that enticing smell of fresh pages, untouched before my hands, like a new morning brimming with promise. And so I’m with Keetha---with a small addition or two: Books are somehow way more personal (important, valuable, interesting, vital to my well-being) than clothes.
I can't part with books either! Luckily I have a husband that keeps building me more bookcases. They are like old friends.
ReplyDeleteI was attending craft nights at our local library. They actually had some crafts which involved tearing up old book and using the pieces!!! I was appalled, lol. Not my cup of tea!!!
We made almost the entire basement with windows at the top into a BIG party room, with two dining tables and another kitchen---PINK, of course. And during the work, the very first thing was one 40' wall for BOOKS. I just love looking at them---the magazine collections, all the Agatha Christies and the three shelves of Louis L'Amour, inherited from both my Dad and sweet DIL'S Grandmother---I love the similar interests running down the family tree.
DeleteI haven't ever just destroyed a book since that silly fad of folding the pages of three or four READER'S DIGESTs into a little fat-half-silo for a silly doorstop in the Seventies. But I DO love some writing in books---finding the thoughts or dreams or reactions just set down on the pages is a bonus to me, especially in actual cursive---I'm grieving its demise in our young folks' lives.
And that tear-and-singe fad at TWO separate Library Fundraiser teas, with a woeful wisp of Jane Austen's words lying RIGHT ON OUR PLATES made me want to throw the centerpieces.
Books definitely win out. I like my own books, too. Not audio books. Books I can touch. Used is OK-- especially if they have little notes in the margin. I feel like I'm sharing it with a friend. Yard sales, charity shops, swaps with friends. I only have one friend I will loan a book to; I don't trust the others!
ReplyDeleteI've been way too profligate with my lending---my eagerness to share such riches and experiences is part of my undoing. And it's the feel of that book in my hands---the fresh or timeworn pages just waiting to be turned. My blog friends kept saying "You should write a book!!" and then two of them lost their blogs into the ether of the Internet, so I have had nine volumes, mostly year by year, and then doubling up in the past few years when I was simply AWAY from all caring about getting posts on here.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I have those colorful pages all printed and bound, slick and heavy and absolutely unique to any others---my words on the page, in books I can hold in my hands. They make a comforting, pretty stack beneath a table in the living room corner, and it BRIGHTS me to lift one and sit with those stories and pictures from other times, with folks I remember and love.