I have a fairly obsessive relationship with books, I’ve got to admit. It started early on–my family all remarked on the tendency of other books in the house to be “absorbed” into my personal library. This didn’t really get to be a problem until I moved away, and for a few years when I was in college, I’d get some annoyed questions from my family about whether this or that book “just happened” to be in my bookshelf at school… (often they were correct). Thankfully, as time has gone on and I’ve had the funds to subsidize my habit, I’ve managed to return (almost) all of the books that are not rightfully mine… though after a certain number of years on a person’s bookshelf, doesn’t ownership revert to the keeper, rather like common-law marriage? I’m fairly certain that’s a bylaw somewhere…
Anyway, I happened across this article (The Book Collection that Devoured My Life) and was really pleased to find a kindred spirit on the book question. Like the author, I’m not particularly a bibliophile, not in the sense that I collect rare volumes or first editions–I just like books. The more, the better. This occasionally has resulted in my collecting several copies of the same book, and other such problems. Some of them I read and reread as often as I think of them, others have never been read but I intend to get to them some day. Some I keep because they should be on an educated, literary person’s bookshelf, and others just looked cool. I like the mishmash of cover styles and sizes, and the way that you can peg a book’s contents by looking at the cover typeface and illustrations. I just like books.
Back in the day, I used to carefully weigh all other purchases… If I buy this skirt, it’s letting go of 4 possible paperbacks–is it worth it? Often, it wasn’t. I’m a nightmare for librarians, when I come up to the counter with a couple dozen books carefully stacked in a neat pile that the librarian can never recreate. (Of course, some places I’ve lived have thoroughly inadequate public libraries and because of that I’ve been buying more all the time… especially since the advent of the wondrous site Amazon…) I love used bookstores for the eclectic offerings that you can find, and mega-bookstores for the fun, trendy current reading featured there. They’re definitely the best bets for “chaff” reading, lightweight fluff to entertain you for an afternoon or part of a plane trip. But online stores are definitely my place of choice these days, because you can read reviews about the books in question to see if they’re worth your while, and also, you can discover books that would appeal to you based on other things that you have loved in the past. Now that is a true delight!
I will admit–with my peripatetic life of late (I haven’t lived in one place longer than 2 ½ years since the early ’90s), my ever-growing library has its disadvantages. It’s kind of funny to see the dismayed looks on movers’ faces when they enter my packed library and unfailingly say something flatly like, “well–you have a lot of books”. I’ve had intermittent library clear-outs, when I got rid of the books that I read and disliked, or things that I picked up on an unremembered whim and now don’t remember why. I’ve found that library clearance sales are particularly dangerous for me in this regard… when they start selling you books by the bagful, something snaps and I lose hours, only to wake up in a car stuffed with grocery bags filled with books, many of which I may never actually open. It’s a disturbing thing… I’ve only allowed myself to attend two of those in my recent memory.
I love the feel of having a book in my hands, the way that a good story transfers you wholly into another world in a way that never truly happens with movies or TV. I love that you can spend days reading a series, immersed in the political turmoils of lands long ago and far away, or completely imaginary worlds that come straight out of an author’s head. I love printed words. I love the smell of the pages.
One of my little back-of-the-mind ideas for what I might do with my life someday is to operate a used bookstore. I wouldn’t really care if it were particularly lucrative… I just like the notion of having so many books at my fingertips all the time. If I could, I’d incorporate more of my (slightly obsessive) interests, like a cafe and maybe a side yarn business. What an odd (but fun!) crowd that might bring in… Well, it’s one of those “maybe someday” dreams I return to now and then.
Posted by Kjirstin 
